Good news! My “I’m from Baltimore, that’s why” T-shirt arrived last night (not kidding). So I’ve got that going for me, which is … something.
As you know, Kevin Willard is now the men’s basketball coach at Villanova. Maryland has no Final Four berth, no men’s basketball coach, no athletic director and no chance that it won’t be 40 degrees next weekend now that we’re ready to put away our winter clothes.
You’re angry at Willard. You’re livid, in fact. I get it. I’m not quite as much. Not because I think he did anything right or he’s a victim but because, honestly, this is how the game works. You’re pissed off about Willard leaving. But you’re livid about how he handled himself on his way out the door.
Tell me, were you furious about how Willard handled himself on his way out the door at Seton Hall three years ago?
I don’t ask that with righteous indignation. I assure you, I think Willard handled himself quite poorly on his way out the door. He attempted to use Damon Evans’ departure to create an exit ramp for himself. While the Maryland athletic department certainly has warts, his attempt to “expose” them only created further division by allowing some fans to believe that he was being treated unfairly, setting the stage for why he’d have to leave.
To be clear, Willard was going to Villanova. He was throwing grenades on his way out during what should have been a celebratory couple of weeks for the fan base.
Still, Maryland is most likely about to poach another school’s basketball coach. That coach might try to take players with him. That’s how this whole thing works. It’s shameful and inappropriate, but it’s how it goes. My gut is that Maryland would have lost to Florida even if Willard had signed an extension two weeks earlier. Florida is absolutely loaded. Beating one of the best teams in college basketball requires having at least ONE viable option off the bench.
But if the circus surrounding the program impacted the players at all, I feel wretched for them. Willard should, too. Perhaps he can mention that as he works to get at least two of them to join him at Villanova.
With Willard gone, Maryland needs a coach. I understand the emotional push unfolding in Maryland circles to have Steve Blake become the program’s next coach. I don’t think it will be successful, but I understand it.
Fans always like the idea of the coach being someone who cares about the program. Given how (relatively) miserable things have been for the program since the departure of Gary Williams, it is understandable why that sentiment might even seem desperate. Blake is the picture of a former player who would make sense as a coach. He was a true point guard, the closest thing to a coach on the court. He started for four years and was an immediate leader as a freshman. He gained the respect of the great players he played alongside throughout his career, including basketball icon Kobe Bryant.
Blake has minimal coaching experience, however, with brief stints on the staffs of the Portland Trail Blazers and Phoenix Suns. It’s somewhat comparable to other recent hires of high-profile alums who didn’t take traditional coaching paths but cared deeply about their schools like Patrick Ewing (Georgetown), Chris Mullin (St. John’s) and Juwan Howard (Michigan).
So yeah.
A popular sentiment among fans is that it’s time for Maryland to consider a non-traditional hire. The school needs to find the right coach, after all. Not the most qualified coach. Going directly from the Patriot League to the Big Ten would be an unprecedented move, but many fans want to see Maryland alum Duane Simpkins get the job after he led American to the NCAA Tournament this year. Others have suggested Maryland alum Šarūnas Jasikevičius, a highly successful European coach. UConn assistant Luke Murray has no obvious tie to the job — he was once an assistant at nearby Towson — but is a popular name within the fan base given his rise among the assistant ranks.
I’m not necessarily here to tell you that any of these potential candidates are bad, per se. But when you ask, “Isn’t it time to do something different?” you’re willfully ignoring the responsibility of the person who will become the second highest-paid state employee. It’s one thing if your small business wants to “go with a hunch” in hiring a candidate. It’s quite another to suggest that a state’s taxpayers should hire someone who may or may not actually be qualified to make more money than nearly everyone else in the state but “trust me bro, he’s cool.”
Maybe Blake is the best hire! But I’m going to guess that Maryland will ultimately hire someone with either high-level or fairly high-level head-coaching experience. Like others, I have been told that Texas A&M’s Buzz Williams has been not-so-subtly batting his eyelashes in the direction of College Park. I’m not sure if he’s the right guy. The one thing I would suggest is that perhaps we need to reconsider what matters in the hiring process.
At the moment, I would be inclined to assume that Maryland has zero basketball players going into the 2025-26 season. We know Julian Reese and Selton Miguel have exhausted their eligibility. Derik Queen will most likely head to the NBA. Ja’Kobi Gillespie and Rodney Rice seem destined to at least wander in the direction of the transfer portal.
As much as I think Maryland should make the correct hire, I think it might be just as imperative to consider which coach might be able to bring multiple players with him to the job, whether that be proven college players who could transfer and high-level recruits who would switch allegiance. Five of Williams’ top six performers at A&M last season were seniors (forward Pharrel Payne was just a junior). Two four-star recruits (Jasir Rencher and Jeremiah Green) are committed to the Aggies.
If Blake happens to have four or five proven college basketball players ready to transfer to Maryland if he gets the job (for some reason), that would go a long way to making up for any holes on his resume.
It’s easy to say “next year will probably be a wash,” but it doesn’t have to be. Things can change quickly in college basketball. Given the life this year’s team injected into the fan base, it would be nice to see the next coach — whoever it is — be able to at least sustain it.
Photo Credit: Kenya Allen/PressBox