Kevin Willard’s Maryland exit still follows him, but the Villanova coach moved on and has high expectations

Second in a two-part series.

Kevin Willard has been to just one Sweet 16. And while college hoops fans in the Northeast know him from his long stint in the Big East, his national profile is new and largely that of a guy who publicly left Maryland for Villanova in a way that cast him as a villain.

Don’t count on any free drinks coming his way in College Park.

More than two months after leaving Maryland to return to the Big East, Willard’s past is still following him. On the morning The Inquirer sat down with the new Villanova coach for a wide-ranging interview, the Baltimore Sun published a story that painted Willard as unhappy from the time he took the Maryland job in 2022 and said his “instantly fractured relationship with his own athletic department splintered from there over the next three years.”

The story describes Willard’s relationship with Maryland athletic director Damon Evans, whose departure for SMU the coach revealed in a press conference during the NCAA Tournament, as one that never worked.

Willard called the story “fake news” and took umbrage with a former president of the fundraising arm of Maryland athletics speculating that Willard may have had a “handshake deal” with Villanova as early as February.

“Total bulls—, and whoever said that has no [expletive] idea what they’re talking about. That can be my quote,” Willard said.

“I was [fully] on board until Damon left.”

» READ MORE: Part 1: New Villanova coach Kevin Willard on summer workouts and the possibility of post-House stabilizing

Willard understandably was not interested in spending much time on the Maryland topic, and he has addressed it a few times since March.

But on being painted as a certain type of person over the last few months and how it has sat with him, Willard said: “I know how it all went down, and so I know how it was for my players who were there at the time. I was honest with everybody.

“I know everyone hates me, and stuff like that, but maybe I just won’t tell the truth next time at a press conference.”

Willard’s candid remarks during the NCAA Tournament, when he criticized the school for its lack of basketball funding, came on the advice of a Maryland booster, he said.

“The biggest reason why I went off in the first press conference,” Willard said, “was because one of my biggest boosters was like, ‘We have leverage for the first time. Let’s try to correct everything that we think is wrong with the program. Let’s try to get as much leverage as we can.’ That came from my biggest booster.”

It’s worth noting that the end of the Sun story leaves the reader with this quote from a former player’s parent who will be involved in mediation to get unpaid dues from the NIL collective Maryland partners with: “It kind of makes it look like Willard was right. Maybe they don’t have the money.”

The saying goes that you never want to be the guy after The Guy. Kyle Neptune was never going to turn down the chance to succeed Jay Wright, but Willard’s in the much more desirable spot of being the guy who followed the guy who followed The Guy.

It’s not an unfamiliar place. At Maryland, Willard followed Mark Turgeon, who got off to a slow start before making consistent runs to the NCAA Tournament. Turgeon followed a 22-year run from Hall of Fame coach Gary Williams.

At Seton Hall, Willard’s 12-year run had him feeling like the program was starting to become his, since the school was so far removed from P.J. Carlesimo’s run in the early ’90s. At Maryland, and now Villanova, Willard may be the most public-facing face of the school, but he’s not the figure associated with the program as a whole.

“I think it always will be Jay Wright’s program, and I’m good with that,” said Willard, 50. “I’m at a stage in my life now where, maybe 10 years ago, I would not have been ready for this, and I probably would have fought it. But I was just at the University of Maryland. That was Gary, it will always be Gary. I loved it. I loved having Coach Williams around. He was awesome.

“I think once you get to a certain age in life, you realize there are a lot better coaches out there than you, and you should embrace that and try to get better from that and what they did.”

Wright has been around as the Wildcats go through their first team workouts this month. Willard said Wright sat down with him and told him that there were some things that needed to change, but Willard pushed back somewhat. Yes, Willard wants to change the style of play a bit. But the slogans on the walls? The way the program remains connected to its past?

“Teaching that is more important to me than anything else,” Willard said.

“I knew Jay so well, and I knew his team so well, just going against them for so many years. A lot of guys do stuff, and it’s bulls—. A lot of guys have slogans. A lot of guys have hourlong meetings, and they like to hear themselves talk. I knew this wasn’t bulls— because I went against it."

So, why change it? Plus, Willard said … “It’s [expletive] Jay Wright.”

» READ MORE: ‘How absurd is that?’: Pope Leo XIV, once just a Villanova student named Bob, is a Wildcats basketball fan

The national college basketball outlet Field of 68 rated Villanova as the fourth-biggest loser of the offseason despite moving on from Neptune. The rankings, of course, mostly are built on transfer portal hauls. Villanova’s isn’t very highly rated. 247Sports ranks Willard’s first portal haul 63rd nationally.

The Wildcats didn’t get many big names in the portal but did sign a top-rated freshman point guard, Acaden Lewis, after he withdrew his commitment to Kentucky. Willard focused mostly on multiyear players who could be retained. There are just three players — Duke Brennan, Devin Askew, and Tafara Gapare — who will exhaust their eligibility after this season.

Villanova will be young in 2025-26, but not that young. Matthew Hodge will play some of his first college basketball minutes in November as a 21-year-old redshirt freshman. Lewis will be 20 when the season starts.

It is fair to wonder how realistic Villanova competing with the upper echelon of the Big East is in 2025-26 when its most experienced Division I scorers come from the likes of Temple (Zion Stanford), James Madison (Bryce Lindsay), Grand Canyon (Brennan), and Long Beach State (Askew).

“I think what this team has is depth, and that’s something I wanted in Year 1,” Willard said. “We have 10 or 11 guys that could play right now; we have versatility — I think we can play big, we can play small, and I think our guard play is going to be severely underrated going into this season.

“I think there’s a lot of guys that we have that we evaluated for huge potential upside. Matt Hodge didn’t play last year, he redshirted, but Matt’s a really freaking good player. Tyler Perkins is my type of player. He’s a tough, hard-nosed guy that gets his hands on the ball and can make shots. We might not have the flashy [players], but I think we have a deep collection of really good players.”

Willard’s biggest concern, he said, is his team’s youth, even with the advanced age of some of his first-year players. He will have to let some of them, like Lewis, play through mistakes and be patient with them.

The youth, though, and finding his footing at his new home, won’t be excuses for not winning right away. Villanova missing the NCAA Tournament for a fourth consecutive season is “not my plan,” Willard said.

“From my perspective, laying the groundwork for the future and what we’re doing is extremely important. But we’ve got to win,” he said. “I expect to win. We spent a good number on this roster. I think we have a really good roster.

“There’s difficulties [in] taking over and really starting over and doing all that, but this is where my ego comes in a little bit. I think we’ve done a pretty good job in years past of doing that, and I think we’ve done a really good job of putting together a good roster that I expect us to win games, yeah.

“I don’t look at Year 1 anymore like you have a two-year grace period. I think that’s bulls— nowadays. I didn’t take this job and say, ‘I now get two years where I don’t have to work.’ We’ve got to produce."