The University of Maryland struck gold when it decided to hire former Seton Hall head coach Kevin Willard a little more than a year ago.
Willard became the first head coach in program history to lead Maryland men’s basketball to the NCAA Tournament in his first season. The Terps earned a No. 8 seed in the tournament and came back from a 13-point first-half deficit to beat No. 9 seed West Virginia in the first round. That was just Willard’s second career NCAA Tournament win.
The Terps’ trip to the Big Dance ended early, though, as Maryland fell to No. 1 overall seed Alabama, 73-51 in the second round. The Terps were one of eight Big Ten teams to earn bids, but the conference still struggled in the tournament, with only Michigan State making it to the Sweet 16.
In his first season, Willard guided the Terps to a 22-13 record and won five games against AP top-25 teams, including an upset of No. 3 Purdue which saw students storm the court.
The first-year head coach showed he could maximize the talents of his players, leading the Terps to a sixth-place finish in the conference after they were picked to finish 10th in the preseason Big Ten poll.
“I think Kevin’s style of play is going to work well,” former Towson men’s basketball head coach Pat Kennedy said on Glenn Clark Radio March 20. “I don’t think he should change anything. To me, he almost looks like a Big 12-type team where he’s going to have athletes, he’s going to have skill guys and he’s going to have some power people as well.”
Kennedy was the head coach at four other schools aside from Towson during his career: Iona, Florida State, DePaul and Montana. He took Iona, Florida State and DePaul to the NCAA Tournament.
Fans should be excited about Maryland with Willard at the helm. Next season, Willard will bring in the No. 16 recruiting class in the country, according to 247Sports, with four incoming freshmen: guards DeShawn Harris-Smith and Jahnathan Lamothe, forward Jamie Kaiser Jr. and center Braden Pierce. Lamothe, Harris-Smith and Kaiser are consensus four-star recruits, while Pierce is a three-star recruit.
“He can recruit, and if this is the floor for him then there’s going to be a lot of exciting times in the future,” Kennedy said. “I will tell you one thing about Kevin — he’s very composed and handles himself really well. You can see he’s a competitor but believe me, he is a very intense, tough competitor.”
The Terps have already reportedly reached out to guards Damian Dunn (Temple), Joe Girard (Syracuse) and Nicolas Timberlake (Towson), who are all in the transfer portal.
“He’s going to be very aggressive and he’s going to be very hard to beat when he gets his hands on some of the kids he wants,” Kennedy said.
For more from Kennedy, listen to the full interview here:
Photo Credit: Kenya Allen/PressBox