UMBC men’s basketball coach Jim Ferry, who just completed the final season of a five-year contract signed in 2021, says he “100 percent” wants to return to Catonsville and expects to have conversations about his future shortly.
Ferry, 58, will enter those talks having just led the Retrievers to a 24-9 season and the America East regular-season and tournament titles. UMBC was sent to Dayton, Ohio, for a First Four play-in game and fell to Howard, 86-83, to close out its season.
Now the school must prepare for the 2026-27 season. The first step is resolving Ferry’s contract situation.
“What people have got to understand now … in this day and age, every year’s a frickin’ contract year — every year,” Ferry said on Glenn Clark Radio March 19. “It’s craziness right now. College athletics, NCAA basketball, it’s a mess. There’s so much pressure. I’m sure that when we get back on Monday, [March 23], we’ll sit down and we’ll figure out what the next step is.”
UMBC has a chance to bring back several of this season’s key contributors. Graduate students DJ Armstrong Jr. and Josh Odunowo are out of eligibility, but juniors Jah’Likai King, Ace Valentine and Jose Roberto Tanchyn, sophomore Caden Diggs and freshman Riley Jacobs can return. However, all five players will almost certainly attract outside interest.
King led the Retrievers in scoring (14.0 points per game), Valentine in assists (3.9) and Tanchyn in rebounding (5.7). Diggs and Jacobs offered valuable athleticism, length and versatility. Other programs were surely watching as those players did their thing in 2025-26. Players can enter the transfer portal from April 7-21.
“At this stage at UMBC, we have not had, nor do we have it right now, [the ability] to sit down and say, ‘We’re going to offer you X number,'” Ferry said.
Ferry said part of his conversations about the future will be how to keep the good times rolling. UMBC drew a record 4,753 fans to Chesapeake Employers Insurance Arena for the America East championship game against Vermont on March 14, creating the kind of electric atmosphere that was slowly building during the season.
Ferry struck gold with Division II transfers Armstrong, King and Tanchyn last offseason, but it stands to reason that the program will need more resources to continue to compete for championships.
“That’s a whole other story — for us to achieve what we achieved with not having the resources that a lot of teams in our own league have, let alone on the outside,” Ferry said. “That’s another conversation, that we’re going to keep growing as a university. Hopefully we all see what we got out of this, and this can take us to another level and we’ll see where we go from here.”
UMBC has never won back-to-back America East titles. Returning all or most of Diggs, Jacobs, King, Valentine and Tanchyn would provide the Retrievers a chance to do just that.
“Listen, if we have the guys back that are actually eligible to come back, then we have a chance to do it again,” Ferry said.
For more from Ferry, listen to the full interview here:
Photo Credit: Courtesy of UMBC Athletics