For Maryland fans who are thrilled that their Terrapins are finally relevant in March again, the words they heard from coach Kevin Willard last Thursday sounded ominous.
Speaking to the media the day before the first-round game with Grand Canyon, Willard was asked whether he has spoken with his players about all the speculation that he is a candidate for other jobs. Most coaches in that situation either don’t answer or dismiss the question with a vague reply. Willard, however, went all in.
“Yeah, I’ve addressed it with them directly,” he said. He went on to reveal that his athletic director Damon Evans had presented him with a term sheet outlining a new contract before the start of the NCAA Tournament. He said Evans had spoken with Willard’s agent. Which, again, would have been more than most coaches would say, but Willard further expounded on the frustrations he has felt at Maryland’s lack of financial resources. He specifically cited an instance where he wanted to stay an extra night with his team in New York City during Christmas break but was told he couldn’t because it was too expensive.
“So there’s fundamental things I’m fighting for for my team and my program,” Willard said. “It’s a little difficult right now, I’m not going to lie. But I’m confident that no matter who we’re negotiating with at the end of the day, this program’s going to be in a great spot and that’s really my focus is this tournament, this team and this program.”
Okay, so that was ominous, but at least work had commenced on a new contract. That had to be a good sign, yes?
No. Because the very next day, Evans left Maryland to become the new AD at SMU, a move that had been widely anticipated and which Willard alluded to in his remarks. It’s hard enough to negotiate a new contract with an AD who’s already in place and with whom the coach has a previous relationship. So who picks up the baton for Maryland in this situation? The answer, for the time being, appears to be no one.
That’s a tough one-two punch, but it’s nothing that can’t be overcome. Except there is one more ominous sign hanging overhead: silence from Villanova.
Villanova fired Kyle Neptune on March 15 and still has yet to name its new coach. That is very unusual considering the transfer portal opened officially on Monday. How important is it to have a coach in place on the day the portal opens? N.C. State hired Will Wade and let him continue to coach McNeese in the NCAA Tournament, just so he could be on the job on Monday. Jai Lucas left his job as an assistant at Duke before the Blue Devils started a national championship run because Miami was going to hire someone else if he didn’t. Miami believed, correctly, that it couldn’t afford to have a vacancy when the portal opened.
That’s why the coaching carousel has been moving especially quickly this year. When UNLV lost its top candidate, Bryan Hodgson, to South Florida on Monday morning, it locked up Josh Pastner as a replacement for Kevin Kruger within hours. Texas fired Rodney Terry on Sunday and announced Sean Miller as his successor the next day. Having lost Miller to Texas, Xavier wasted no time in landing New Mexico’s Richard Pitino as his replacement on Tuesday.
Yet, here we are, nearly two weeks after Villanova made a move it had known for months it was likely to make, and it still has not named Neptune’s replacement. Why is the school waiting so long to hire its next coach?
Could it be because its next coach is still coaching?
We don’t know the answer for sure, but it is the most logical explanation. It’s the worst kept secret in the sport that Willard has been communicating with Villanova, either directly or through his representatives, and has let them know that he is serious about the job. The odds of that happening increased when Pitino was tapped at Xavier, because he has widely been seen as the other primary candidate. Willard could have ended all this speculation on Tuesday during a radio interview with 106.7 The Fan in Washington, D.C. When host Kevin Sheehan asked Willard if he was staying as Maryland’s coach, Willard laughed and replied, “As of right now, I’m staying, Kev, yes.”
As of right now.
Villanova is playing a risky game because it’s possible Willard is using the school’s interest in him as leverage to get a better deal at Maryland. Then again, with no AD, there’s no one with whom Willard can even use that leverage. But I would be surprised if Willard would string Villanova along like ths if he weren’t truly interested. Villanova may have had a rough couple of years under Neptune, but make no mistake, this is one of the best jobs in the country. The program has prodigious financial resources and unlike schools in the other four power conferences, it doesn’t have to share that revenue with football. The first dollars through the door — and there are a lot of them — will go to men’s basketball. Jobs like this don’t come around often and Willard knows it.
It is a strange convergence of events, but we are in strange times. Maryland has a big game coming up Thursday night against Florida and perhaps another one on Saturday, but as big as these games are, there’s an even bigger question that’s going to be answered as soon as Maryland’s season is over. Given what we know, it doesn’t look like that question will be answered the way most Maryland fans want.
