Maryland men’s basketball picked up its first commitment under new coach Kevin Willard on Monday with three-star small forward Noah Batchelor announcing that he will be joining the program.
Batchelor — who is from Frederick County and played for St. Maria Goretti and Glenelg Country School in Ellicott City before transferring to IMG Academy in Florida — is ranked the No. 46 small forward and the No. 221 overall player from the 2022 recruiting class, according to 247Sports.
Batchelor chose the Terps after withdrawing his national letter of intent from Memphis in February. He committed to the Tigers in July 2021 and was the program’s lone signee from the 2022 recruiting class before reopening his recruitment.
Batchelor also has held offers from Bryant, Clemson, Florida, Georgetown and Marquette, among others.
After spending his freshman year at St. Maria Goretti, Batchelor broke out as a sophomore at Glenelg Country, where he was named first team All-Howard County after the 2019-20 season. He scored 23 points in a season-opening win over Bishop O’Connell and averaged a team-high 13.5 points per game playing against some of the state’s top players in the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland A Conference.
Batchelor ended up scoring over 20 points on six occasions that season and proved himself particularly dangerous from beyond the 3-point arc, hitting 62 total triples on the season. He knocked down six 3-pointers in a one-point win over Archbishop Spalding, which featured the state’s top player and Villanova commit Cam Whitmore, including a buzzer-beating shot that sent the game to overtime.
“There are a lot of shot-takers at every level of basketball, but shot makers are the ones that stand out. Noah is a shot-maker,” Glenelg Country coach Garrett O’Donnell said. “When defense would help off of him, he would make them pay with a dagger three from anywhere beyond the arc.”
The 6-foot-6 small forward will be joining a Maryland team that’s still constructing its roster for the 2022-23 season. Maryland is expected to return several key players in freshman Julian Reese and juniors Donta Scott and Hakim Hart.
However, the Terps lost graduate students Fatts Russell and Xavier Green as well as senior guard Eric Ayala. Junior forward Qudus Wahab entered the transfer portal after just one season in College Park while sophomore guard Marcus Dockery committed to Howard after entering the portal.
