Kevin Willard has seen better days as coach of the men’s basketball team at Villanova following Friday’s loss to Utah State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. And now, Willard’s in-game remarks about firing his coaching staff sent an unintended message that went viral in the aftermath.
During the first half of Friday’s game, Willard told CBS Sports sideline reporter Lauren Shehadi that he was going to fire Villanova’s staff due to their poor performance in getting his team ready to play. Willard appeared angry at his team’s lack of execution and was joking about his staff, but did not smile or offer laughter to Shehadi.
“I’m going to fire my staff,” Willard said. “Because we’ve given up eight points on underneath, out-of-bounds defense. The only thing I’m going do is fire them and get a new staff.”
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After the final horn, Willard was asked about his in-game comments and doubled down on upcoming staff decisions.
“We gave up a big 3-pointer late,” Willard said. “I’m probably going to have to make some changes to my staff because of how bad we were.”
During the follow-up question, Willard interrupted a reporter who pointed at the staff comments again.
“It’s a joke,” Willard said, perturbed. “God bless it … I don’t care. Welcome to my life. It’s a joke.”
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Villanova earned a third-place finish in the Big East this season before falling to 11th-seeded Georgetown in the conference tournament and being one-and-done in March Madness.
The Wildcats squandered a 10-point lead in the second half against the Aggies, an unexpected early exit from Willard, who took Maryland to the second weekend of last season’s NCAA Tournament.
“You know, we got up by 10, and then we gave up three offensive rebounds. Give them credit,” Willard said. “They’re a veteran team, older guards. They did a great job of getting in the late, but we had our opportunities. Then we were up 73-71, and we missed two layups that kind of really hurt us. Give them credit. They capitalized on it.”
Utah State (29-6) will try to take down top-seeded Arizona on Sunday night in the second round.
“We did not like our seed,” Aggies coach Jerrod Calhoun said. “We were not too fond of being a nine seed. We won 28 games. We won the regular season title, we won the tournament title. So when this team has an edge and they play with a little bit of swagger and a little bit of toughness and resilience, we can cause a lot of problems.”
