Maryland basketball is still in the running for 5-star SG MJ Walker

Now that Melo Trimble has declared for the NBA Draft and hired an agent, Maryland basketball has one scholarship spot open.

Getting MJ Walker to fill it would be a coup for a team that now has to replace one of the best scorers in program history. The Jonesboro, Ga. recruit is ultra-athletic, so much so that he’s landed several Division I football offers despite not playing the game since his sophomore year. Walker’s one of the top uncommitted players in the country, and included Maryland in a list of seven schools he’s still considering at a practice for the McDonald’s All-America Game.

Walker is a five-star recruit on the 247Sports Composite, which rates him as the No. 4 shooting guard in the Class of 2017 and the No. 3 player in Georgia. Maryland’s been pursuing him for a while, and now that Trimble’s gone, the Terps can offer him a spot.

And sure, top-seven lists given after practices are no sure thing, but Maryland and Walker aren’t strangers. Turgeon coached Walker during his time as an assistant on USA’s U-18 team last summer, which can’t hurt in his pursuit of the blue-chipper. Walker also mentioned Maryland in an interview with Scout’s Evan Daniels:

Who else is on your list of schools?

UCLA, Kansas, Virginia Tech, Maryland, Ohio State, Florida State, UNLV was talking about something. These are just a couple of the schools I’m thinking about maybe.

Are there any of them that you know you want to see?

I think I want to go out to the west coast and see UCLA. I think I might go out to Maryland, I’m not sure or not. Maryland, Virginia Tech, between them two and that’s really probably a lot right now but it could change.

Maryland has already signed four-star center Bruno Fernando and four-star guard Darryl Morsell in its 2017 class. Adding Walker to that mix would give Turgeon the sort of young core that could make his team one of the favorites to win Big Ten next season.

This article was updated after publication.