It doesn’t matter how many games she watches. Whenever Julian Reese plays, his mom gets nervous.
Angel Reese (not to be confused with her WNBA star daughter with the same name) adheres to superstition and rituals to calm her nerves. She sat in the same seat at Xfinity Center for four years. She prefers not to wear a jersey, just a plain University of Maryland hat. Still, when it feels like the game is getting out of control, she’s prone to panic.
“This week is the most I’ve seen Julian smile in the 21 years I’ve known him.”
Julian’s mother, Angel Reese
As the Terps men’s basketball team tussled with Colorado State in the NCAA tournament Sunday night, Angel was back in Randallstown, fretting — understandable given that Maryland’s previous four losses all came in the last 8 seconds of the game. When Rams guard Jalen Lake made a go-ahead 3-pointer with 3.7 seconds left, she couldn’t bear to watch. She canceled her hotel reservation to San Francisco for the following weekend and walked away from the TV.
“I let the dog out, got distracted, then I went back and saw that they won,” Angel said. “It’s been so awful these last few losses, but this time we were on the right side of the buzzer-beater.”
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That’s what moms do — worry.
Throughout Julian’s career, Angel has worried for her younger child, whose reserved, stoic personality is almost the polar opposite of her daughter’s. She has worried that he’s taken more criticism than he deserves and that he took the brunt of local furor when his sister transferred out of Maryland. She has worried that Julian is overshadowed by the stardom of his sister — that he doesn’t get his own time to shine.
But here the Terps are in the Sweet 16, and here Julian is at the forefront — one of the team’s most reliable leaders who has helped power the program to its best run in the tournament in a decade. She’s proud that her son is getting his moment, and she’s been surprised by how he’s relishing it — she even saw him dancing in a teammate’s TikTok video after Sunday’s win.
“I’m like, ‘Oh my God, who is that kid?‘” she said. “This week is the most I’ve seen Julian smile in the 21 years I’ve known him.”
Splitting time and attention between her children has been a challenge for Angel for years, the plight of a single mom. When the kids were growing up, there were times when she had to pick which games she could attend. When she was working, she had to ask her own parents or her kids’ teammates’ parents to drive them to practice and tournaments.
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As her children have grown into well-known players, the dynamic has evolved. Her daughter Angel has never had a problem standing up to critics online or otherwise, but Julian isn’t wired that way. He would rather ignore the noise and let people talk.
Occasionally his mother takes it upon herself to be his defender — his “guardian Angel,” if you will — getting into social media spats when she feels fans are being too critical of her son. Sometimes seeing his mom take up his cause makes Julian sigh, but he knows it comes from a good place.
“Sometimes I kinda wish she just didn’t say nothing, ‘cause it’s like a million people saying stuff so there’s no point in really responding,” Julian said. “But I understand why: She’s a mom. Nobody really wants to hear someone say something bad about their kids.”
The relationship between Maryland and the Reese family has sometimes been fraught, leading Angel to take extended breaks from social media to stop reading what people have to say about her kids.
It was a feel-good story when Julian and his sister (who both attended St. Frances Academy) were both playing for the Terps, but when she transferred to LSU — to go on to a national championship and superstardom — it rankled some fans. At the end of last season, when the Terps went 16-17, Angel told her son it might be in his best interest to move on, too.
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But she also has let her kids choose their own paths. Julian said he wanted to stay with the Terps, and she accepted his decision.
“She understands I’m a grown man, that I gotta pick for myself,” Julian said. “She just kinda gave what she felt was going on after last season, but I said, ‘Nah, I’m gonna stick it out, finish what I started here.’ And now we’re here, so I guess it paid off.”
Angel is proud of her son, who will finish his degree this semester. And she’s relieved that sticking it out worked for him: “I’m glad Julian didn’t listen to me. I’m so happy for the Terps community and coaches, and I just want Julian to enjoy it.”
Aside from the team’s success, Julian has also moved up the school record books. In the CSU game, he became just the second Terp (with Len Elmore) to record at least 1,000 career rebounds. While his mother was a dedicated rebounder herself, third all time at UMBC with 932, she doesn’t claim to have handed down any special family technique that led to both her children becoming excellent at cleaning the glass.
“If I had to make a connection,” she said, “I’d just say they’re both determined.”
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Raising two kids with determination was always Angel’s dream. It has worked out far beyond what she imagined. Her daughter is a WNBA star who has also scored big with endorsements and commercial branding, while Julian has gained the spotlight and is making money through Maryland’s name, image and likeness collective. Her daughter recently surprised her by paying off the mortgage on her house.
“I do sit back sometimes and pinch myself,” Angel said. “Whenever it’s time for me to move on from this earth, my goal was always that I wanted to make sure my kids would be able to move on their own, that I supported them and put them in a position to succeed.”
Even though she has gotten a taste of high life through her children, Angel has stuck to her routine, too. She still lives in the Randallstown house where she raised her family, and she still works at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab, as she has for 27 years. People ask if she’s going to move — she’s not sure why she would.
“I am a very simple person,” she said. “My house is nice. I love my neighbors. It’s close to what I need to get to. I’m gonna keep this house and give it to my kids one day.”
As successful as her children are, Angel sees herself as their supporter, not the other way around. More weeks than not, her daughter’s dog lives with her in Randallstown (“Angel doesn’t have the schedule to take care of a dog,” she said). Even though Julian offered to pay for her flight to San Francisco this weekend, she turned him down.
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“She’s like a real down-to-earth person,” Julian said of his mom. “She doesn’t need the world or anything, but me and my sister, we still try to give our mom the world. Just a great mom, not wanting anything back but love. It means a lot.”
When the family assembles in San Francisco this weekend, it will be a chance for the focus to be on Julian. Angel dreams of her son making it to the Final Four in San Antonio — the same city where her daughter won a national championship two years ago, with Julian watching from the stands.
“When we got there, he was so excited, and I said, ‘Julian, you could be here one day. Just keep working hard,‘” she said. “Wouldn’t that be a hoot if Maryland made the Final Four in Texas, too?”
It’s a moment for the family to reflect on how far they’ve come, how much their lives have outrun their wildest dreams. But the most important things never change. Angel will always call her son “Julian,” not “Juju” as he prefers. “Mothers call their kids by their government names,” she said.
And she’ll never stop worrying for her son — or fighting for him, either.
“She just wants her kids to win,” Julian said. “She wants me to win.”
