Gillespie is a strong candidate to be Maryland’s starting point guard next season.
Maryland men’s basketball appears to have found its point guard for next season. Ja’Kobi Gillespie, who played two seasons at Belmont, announced Wednesday on social media that he will transfer to Maryland.
Gillespie has two years of eligibility remaining and averaged 17.2 points, 4.2 assists and 3.8 rebounds this season. He was ranked by 247Sports as the No. 14 player available in the transfer portal at the time of his commitment, making him the fourth-best available point guard. Gillespie visited College Park last weekend, just over a week after he announced his plans to enter the transfer portal on March 15.
Gillespie will help fortify Maryland’s backcourt, which returns starter DeShawn Harris-Smith — who just finished his freshman season — but loses Jahmir Young, who in his two years with the program was easily Maryland’s most productive player. Young was an all-conference selection both years, this most recent season averaging 20.4 points, 4.9 rebounds and 4.2 assists per game. Like Gillespie, Young came to Maryland as a mid-major transfer, arriving after three seasons with Charlotte.
Gillespie is the second player to announce they will transfer to Maryland this offseason, the other being former Virginia Tech guard Rodney Rice, who made his decision public on Sunday.
Importantly, Gillespie is a capable 3-point shooter, an area that cost Maryland dearly this season. The Terps shot just 28.9% from beyond the arc, second-worst among power conference teams and a major factor in having the second-lowest scoring offense in the Big Ten.
Gillespie struggled shooting the three as a freshman, converting on just 29.5% of his attempts, but saw a marked improvement as a sophomore with an outside shooting percentage of 38.7%. His effective field goal percentage — which weights the value of 3-point and 2-point attempts proportionally — was 63.1% this season, best in the Missouri Valley and 14th-best nationally.
Gillespie, who stands at 6-foot-1 and 180 pounds, is also a strong fit for Maryland’s defense, which was among the nation’s best this season. He has finished top-three in the Missouri Valley in steals each of the last two seasons, leading the league as a sophomore with 2.2 steals per game — a top-20 mark nationally.
Maryland has one open scholarship remaining, with Rice and Gillespie filling two of the three openings created by the decisions of Noah Batchelor, Caelum Swanton-Rodger and Jahnathan Lamothe to transfer. The graduations of Young and forward Donta Scott will be offset by incoming freshmen Derik Queen, a five-star center, and Malachi Palmer, a three-star guard.