MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. – One of coach Kevin Willard's biggest takeaways from Maryland's 73-51 loss to No. 1 seed Alabama in the 2023 NCAA Tournament was that he needed to improve the team's athleticism.
Willard said he had a great team last year that was fun to coach, but there were limits on what they could do physically and athletically.
Enter Jordan Geronimo, a representation of how the transfer portal has changed college basketball.
Geronimo stands at 6-foot-6 and 225 pounds with jump-out-of-the-gym athleticism. He boasts 82 games of Big Ten experience at Indiana. In past eras, adding a player like this was impossible without waiting for them to sit out a year. But NCAA rule changes have allowed Willard and coaches across the country to immediately address their teams' weaknesses through the transfer portal.
Though Geronimo played his first three collegiate seasons at Indiana, Willard knew Geronimo, a Newark, N.J. native, when he coached at Seton Hall. So when Geronimo entered the transfer portal, the connection was already there.
And so far, Geronimo has proven to be just what Willard wanted.
"He was one of those guys that just was going to be a game-changer for us," Willard said Tuesday at Big Ten media days in Minneapolis. "He is shooting the basketball great. He is skilled. More than anything, he has just changed our roster just by adding him."
Maryland has one of the best guards in the Big Ten in Jahmir Young, plus two talented freshmen who will likely step into the starting shooting guard and small forward roles in DeShawn Harris-Smith and Jamie Kaiser. But Willard said the addition of Geronimo also gives them an option to play a jumbo lineup with Donta Scott, Julian Reese, Mady Traore and Geronimo.
Maryland hasn't practiced for longer than an hour and 26 minutes this season, Willard noted, because of how athletic and physical practices have been.
"Jordan has changed the way we play," Willard said. "He is that good of a player."
It's clear that Willard feels Geronimo can help the Terrapins this year despite never fully panning out in three seasons at Indiana due to a variety of reasons.
He committed to Indiana under former head coach Archie Miller and first joined the team for the 2020-21 season, which was shortened and played in empty stadiums due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Throughout his Indiana career, Geronimo was consistently behind veteran forwards Trayce Jackson-Davis and Race Thompson.
As a freshman, he appeared in 21-of-27 games, and was 10th on the team at 8.1 minutes played per game. Two of his best games came in wins over top-10 ranked Iowa teams, and he even flashed some perimeter skills by making 4-of-10 3-point attempts that year.
There was hope of a breakout sophomore year entering the 2021-22, but Geronimo's impact was always going to be limited with Jackson-Davis and Thompson dominating the front court minutes. Geronimo scored in double figures during road wins against Minnesota and Nebraska, then posted a career-high 15 points on 7-for-11 shooting with seven rebounds in an NCAA Tournament First Four Round win over Wyoming.
That performance appeared to be momentum for Geronimo to finally reach his vast potential as a junior in 2022-23. Again, he received the "breakout candidate" label. Heading into the season, Geronimo mentioned getting reps at the small forward position in practice. He aimed to develop enough perimeter skills and versatility to play alongside Jackson-Davis and Thompson, instead of waiting behind them on the bench.
That goal never came to fruition, though, as Geronimo remained in his same backup power forward role. His minutes were nearly identical from sophomore to junior year, about 12.5 per game, as was his scoring production, just over four points per game. But without Geronimo, Indiana wouldn't have claimed conference wins over Wisconsin and Illinois.
When Thompson went down with an injury in early January, Geronimo made five of his six career starts. He scored 12 points and snatched 11 rebounds against Wisconsin, overpowering the Badgers front court with physicality and athleticism.
The following game, Geronimo was Indiana's second-leading scorer in an 80-65 win at Illinois. He contributed 13 points, eight rebounds and three blocks. He developed chemistry with Jackson-Davis to create a two-man game in the paint that flustered both Wisconsin and Illinois.
But after playing a combined 59 minutes in what were arguably the two best games of his Indiana career, Geronimo's role fizzled when Thompson returned from injury. He went on to score just 11 combined points in his final 10 games, and didn't play in Indiana's season-ending loss to Miami in the NCAA Tournament.
Though Geronimo made a number of highlight-reel dunks and and-ones as a Hoosier, a lack of perimeter skills and inconsistent defense held him back. There's no easy path to major minutes at Maryland either, as the Terrapins return starting forwards Julian Reese and Donta Scott.
But Willard is clearly impressed by Geronimo in practice thus far, so perhaps he'll finally break through and put it all together as a Terrapin.
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