Wahab to enter transfer portal less than year after arrival
Less than a year after arriving in College Park from Georgetown, Maryland junior forward Qudus Wahab announced in an Instagram post Thursday that he will enter the transfer portal but did not rule out a return to play under new coach Kevin Willard.
“After speaking with the new coaching staff, I believe it’s of my best interest to enter my name in the portal while keeping my options open for the possibility of returning to the University of Maryland,” Wahab wrote.
Wahab, 22, was expected to be a force inside for the Terps in 2021-22 — he was rated the No. 3 overall transfer of the offseason, according to CBSSports.com — but struggled and was largely inconsistent against the Big Ten Conference’s big men.
The 6-foot-11, 240-pound forward averaged 7.7 points and 5.6 rebounds per game in his only season with Maryland, which went 15-17 to suffer its first losing season since 1993.
Wahab, who hails from Lagos, Nigeria, started the season strong, notching 17 points on 7-for-10 shooting in his debut against Quinnipiac before totaling 18 points and a career-high 15 rebounds versus George Washington to become the first Terps player since Steve Francis in 1998 to score 17 or more points in his first two games. Wahab’s minutes dwindled from there, however, and he failed to attempt double-digit shots in a game the rest of the season.
Still, Wahab started 31 of the team’s 32 games and his exit would leave the Terps without much depth inside.
Freshman Julian Reese, who started in place of Wahab against Rutgers on Jan. 15, is expected to slide into a starting role under Willard next season.