Tom Crean, a former head men’s basketball coach at Marquette, Indiana and Georgia, has high praise for the job Maryland men’s basketball head coach Kevin Willard has done in his first year on the job.
The current ESPN analyst has known the Willard family for years. Crean joined Ralph Willard’s coaching staff at Western Kentucky in 1990 as an assistant coach after finishing graduate school. When Crean joined the coaching staff, Kevin was just 15 years old. Crean spent four seasons with the Hilltoppers before following Ralph to Pittsburgh for the 1994-95 season.
“My background with Kevin is almost like family. I love Kevin Willard. I love the family,” Crean said on Glenn Clark Radio Feb. 24. “I follow him closely and I thought he was just an absolute great fit.”
Kevin Willard is off to a great start with the Terps. With one game remaining in the regular season, the Terps are 20-10 overall and 11-8 in Big Ten play. Maryland has recorded some big wins this season, including an upset of Purdue last month and taking down Miami in November in Connecticut to win the Basketball Hall of Fame Tip-Off Tournament.
The Terps finished off their 2022-23 home slate with a 16-1 record, setting a new program record with 13 consecutive wins at home against Big Ten opponents dating back to last season.
“You go into Maryland and you just realize it’s one of the great home-court advantages in college basketball that not everyone understands how great it is,” Crean said. “And it’s very, very hard to win in there and they have a tremendous student section when people come in there. The fans are on you, they’re tough, they’re well-educated on basketball … and they’re into it.”
After defeating Northwestern on Feb. 26, the Terps joined the 2018-19 Purdue squad as the only Big Ten teams to go 10-0 at home in conference play. Taking down the Wildcats earned the Terps a spot in the most recent AP poll (No. 21).
Willard is having a successful season in part with the stellar play of senior guard Jahmir Young. Young is leading the Terps in scoring, averaging15.9 points a game. He has also posted a team-high 98 assists and 36 steals.
“What [Willard] did is he’s developed the players that are there,” Crean said. “They went in and got Jahmir Young, who I think is the key to their team because when he plays well and when he’s at a different level and he’s playing at all three levels — meaning he’s making threes, he’s getting in the paint making passes and he can make his layups — he makes everybody better.”
Crean believes the Terps could be a dangerous team in the Big Ten tournament and NCAA Tournament. Crean says the Terps are one of the best 15 teams in the country right now and that Willard can turn Maryland back into a championship-caliber program sometime in the near future.
Willard learned a lot from his father Ralph and former boss Rick Pitino that he brought with him to College Park, according to Crean.
“He’s got a style of play that he has the conviction in, but he’s got a level of intelligence, awareness and flexibility to figure out a way to beat you on that given night,” Crean said. “… When you have not only a system, but when you have a flexibility and a cerebral type of spacing and awareness of the game that your players can adjust to based on who they’re playing then I think that gives you another edge and I think Kevin Willard has that.”
For more from Crean, listen to the full interview here:
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