VILLANOVA, Pa. — Kevin Willard paid homage to Villanova basketball standard-bearer Jay Wright on Wednesday and pledged to foster the Wright-built culture of attitude, hard work and toughness while he attempts to return the Wildcats to their place among the nation’s elite.
The school announced Willard’s hiring March 30, three days after his Maryland team lost in the NCAA Sweet 16. He said at his introductory news conference he sought Wright’s blessing before he accepted the job.
“He sent me one of the greatest texts I’ve ever got: ‘I am behind you 100%. You are the right guy at the right time for this,'” Willard said.
Wright left coaching in 2022 after leading the Wildcats to six Big East titles, 16 NCAA tournaments, four Final Fours and two national championships in 21 seasons. Kyle Neptune, who succeeded Wright, was 54-47 overall and 31-29 in Big East play in three years with no NCAA appearances.
Wright, 2016 national championship game hero Kris Jenkins and Big East commissioner Val Ackerman were among the attendees at the news conference.
The Wildcats got a Big East guy in Willard, save for the three years he was at Maryland. Willard was a six-year assistant to Rick Pitino at Louisville, which was in the Big East in Willard’s last two years there, and he was head coach at Seton Hall from 2010-22.
“I feel like I’m in the prime of my coaching career,” Williard said. “I just turned 50. I’m blessed to have two kids who are going to go off to college soon. My wife and I, we’re going to be empty-nesters, so this is my life. This was my wife and I making a decision together where we wanted to spend, technically, my last job.”
Willard said he has been busy assembling his roster. He said he has done about 120 recruiting-related Zoom calls in the past week. All five starters have exhausted their eligibility, and three reserves have entered the transfer portal so far.
“I’m extremely confident in my staff and I about what we’re going to build and how we’re going to build it,” he said. “We’re making sure we’re doing it the right way with the kids we want. We’re going to lose some kids to the portal. That’s understandable.”
Willard’s parting with the Terrapins wasn’t clean. During media appearances last month, he publicly campaigned for more resources and said Maryland’s funding for name, image and likeness pay was woefully inadequate.
The headline-making scuttlebutt prompted him to open his Villanova news conference with self-deprecating humor.
“I’m going to be brief because I’ve learned over the last two weeks it’s probably better to say less than it is more,” Willard said, drawing laughs. “I promised my wife I’d be on my best behavior.”
Willard said the college sports environment has become “out of control” the last three years with athletes allowed to earn money for endorsements, and more challenges await once revenue sharing begins as soon as July.
“The average person just doesn’t understand what’s going on with transfer portal, NIL, how much money is being spent,” he said. “This is the greatest sport, in my opinion. We are in the Northeast. It’s the best area to play college basketball.
“I think we all hope there are some guardrails put in place to not only help the schools — I think the schools are going to be tremendously challenged the next three, four years — but also to help the players and give them some guidelines and some rules that will help them stay in school longer, be part of a family like this, a culture like this.”
