Inside Jahari Long’s journey from knee surgery to a major role with Maryland men’s basketball

Shante Wilson was in New Jersey helping her son, Jahari Long, pack his bags. They planned to head back to their home in Houston, with Long ready to begin the next chapter of his college basketball career.

Long, who spent his first two seasons at Seton Hall, entered the transfer portal after Kevin Willard — his head coach at Seton Hall — made the trip down I-95 to take the Maryland men’s basketball head coaching job following the 2021-22 season.

Long had his new school picked out. He wanted to play closer to home.

Then Wilson’s phone rang. On the line was Tony Skinn, who had just reunited with Willard as an assistant coach at Maryland after previously spending three seasons with him at Seton Hall.

“Coach Willard wants Jahari to come to Maryland,” Skinn said.

“Seriously?” Wilson asked. 

Willard stayed in communication with Wilson and Long after his departure from Seton Hall. When he took the Maryland job, Wilson texted to congratulate him. 

Maryland wasn’t in Long’s plans at the time — he wasn’t even talking to power conference schools. His intention was to visit North Texas and commit there as soon as he got home.

Long still took the visit to North Texas, but had changed his mind by then. He was going to be a Terp.

“Once I got back home I talked to everybody and they were like, ‘I think you should go to Maryland … it gives you another opportunity to play at the highest level’,” Long said. “And then I just took that opportunity.”

Long appeared in just five games during his sophomore season at Seton Hall before his campaign was cut short by an injury he suffered in practice.

The guard tried to play through it, but after visiting a doctor, was told he had torn cartilage in his left knee. Long was given two options: a platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injection — which would allow him to continue to play but put him at risk of aggravating the injury — or surgery that would sideline him for six months, ending his season.

Long chose the latter. Wilson and him settled on Dr. Riley J. Williams III, the team physician for the Brooklyn Nets, to perform the surgery in December 2021.

Despite a strenuous six months working to get back on the court, Willard still believed in Long and his ability to play in the Big Ten, which meant everything to the 6-foot-5 guard. That belief is why Wilson said it was a “no-brainer” to make the trip to College Park when she received that phone call from the Maryland coaching staff.

“I felt like Coach Willard was always good to Jahari,” she said. “I told him, ‘You’ve been with coach Willard. He believes in you’ … it was truly a blessing.”

Surgery may have ended Long’s sophomore season, but it couldn’t keep him away from the court. As soon as he was cleared to return to the gym, he sat in a chair on Seton Hall’s practice court and got shots up, with a team manager grabbing rebounds for him.

Long used the time he spent sidelined to pick the brains of an experienced group of Seton Hall guards. 

“I was playing alongside Jared Rhoden, Bryce Aiken, Myles Cale, Kadary Richmond … they were all great guards,” he said. “I was learning to see what they see, when they will be aggressive, their decision making … It was just a great learning experience.”

Long has assumed an important role for the Terps. Now two years removed from surgery, his minutes have nearly doubled — from 9.9 per game as a junior to 19.5 through two-thirds of the 2023-24 regular season, the most for any non-starter.

Willard has been with Long every step of the way throughout his college career. He’s always maintained his belief in the Houston native’s abilities. 

“We need Jahari to play at a high level coming off the bench,” Willard said. “He’s the one guard that really comes in and has experience … I think he’s starting to get a lot more confidence in his game.”

Long is doing exactly that — he’s scored over five points in three of his last four games, including an 11-point performance against Nebraska at the end of January. Long is 8-for-12 from three-point range in that span. He’s shooting 36 percent from beyond the arc on the season, the highest on a Maryland team that has struggled from the perimeter.

Long’s success comes because he believes his knee issues are fully behind him after battling various major injuries throughout his junior season.

“It would be something out of nowhere,” he said. “I would do something to tweak [the surgically-repaired knee] or bump knees with somebody or something like that … and I had the hamstring and groin problems.”

Long never missed time — he played in all 35 games in his first season at Maryland, a successful one that saw a Terps team with little preseason expectations win 20 regular season games and reach the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

But Long now feels that his burst is back where it needs to be, allowing him to flourish.

“As far as my quickness, my speed, my handles … every move I make, I feel much more comfortable,” he said. “I feel as I did before the surgery.”

Long didn’t even envision himself playing power conference basketball two years ago. Now he’s the first player off Maryland’s bench and a bright spot in what’s been an otherwise underwhelming season for the Terps.