It’s been three years since Kevin Willard left New Jersey, but the former Seton Hall basketball coach is keeping a close eye on the Garden State.
He has to study Rutgers, which visits his 18th-ranked Maryland squad Sunday (noon Big Ten Network) coming off an impressive takedown of 23rd-ranked Illinois. And of course he remains interested in the Hall and specifically his successor and former right-hand man Shaheen Holloway as they struggle though a historically bad campaign.
With Maryland at 17-6 overall and 7-5 in the Big Ten, Willard seems to have gotten a good handle on team-building in the free agency era.
As always, he had some interesting things to say when reached by phone Friday.
On Rutgers: ‘Night and day’ improvement
When it comes to Rutgers, Willard understands what it’s like to bring in a blockbuster recruiting class and coach a freshmen-driven team. At the Hall it took two seasons for Isaiah Whitehead, Angel Delgado and company to fulfill their potential and capture the 2016 Big East Tournament title. Rutgers skipper Steve Pikiell has just one with Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey.
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“I feel like I have a really special freshman (Maryland center Derik Queen averages 15 points and 8.3 rebounds per game), and those two guys are phenomenal,” Willard said. “Not only are they good, but Ace Bailey is a competitor. He’s playing three different positions, he’s got one of the highest usage rates, he’s blocking shots, he’s getting steals. And Dylan Harper is one cool cat. He doesn’t get sped up, he’s got great vision on the court. Whenever he needs to make a bucket, you don’t see too many kids his age say, ‘Let me get to my 16-foot spot and make a jumper.’ It’s special.”
Where Willard sees the most in-season growth, however, is in how the members of the supporting cast have come to understand and fill their roles.
“The difference from how they were playing early in the season to how they’re playing now, it’s an unbelievable testament to Steve being patient, letting the kids learn, letting them grow,” he said.
That’s particularly true, he said, on the defensive end. Statistically, Rutgers (12-11 overall, 5-7 Big Ten) has moved into the middle of the pack in terms of team defense and rebounding stats in conference games only after starting the season lagging in both categories.
“It’s night and day,” Willard said. “They’re more connected. The guys off the bench have made a big difference defensively – they’ve given them a lift defensively when they’ve come in. Offensively, you know where the ball is going to go. But from a defensive standpoint, I thought early in the year they would get lost at times, and that doesn’t happen anymore. That’s a huge compliment to Steve because he really was patient with this group, and now he’s getting rewarded.”
On Seton Hall: ‘They’ll get it right’
Willard said he’s texted Holloway encouragement multiple times this season as the Pirates have staggered along at 6-17 overall and 1-11 in the Big East. As someone whose program recently was gifted $10 million from an anonymous donor, he knows how much of a curve ball the professionalizing of college basketball is for a place like Seton Hall.
Plus the adjustment to coaching high-major ball is hard enough without all this upheaval. In South Orange, Willard bottomed out in season three before growing into the job and putting together six NCAA Tournament seasons.
“We are in such a new era of college basketball, and it’s only Sha’s third year as a high-major coach and he’s having to deal with such drastic changes,” Willard said. “As good of a coach as he already is, this is only going to make him better. Fan bases don’t want to hear this from a coach, but you’re going to have a bad year every once in a while. Whether it’s being limited in NIL or because of injuries, they’re having a bad year. But he’s a Seton Hall Pirate through and through, he loves the place, the fan base loves him, and he’s a hell of a coach. I would not bet against Shaheen Holloway.”
There’s a growing sentiment among those close to the program that the all-around brutality of the current winter, from the losses to the abysmal attendance to the bad publicity, will spark a major influx of resources to help Holloway, aided in part by the impending ability for colleges to share revenue with athletes.
Though the circumstances were different, Willard has seen the Hall rise from the ashes of embarrassment before.
“Seton Hall, when I first got there it wasn’t in the greatest spot, and Sha has taken over a spot in college basketball that’s not in a great spot,” Willard said. “The one thing I know about Seton Hall and I know about Shaheen Holloway is they’re going to figure it out and get it right. It’s a great place and they’ll get it right. He will get it right – I have no doubt in my mind about that.”
On modern program building: ‘You can’t just wing it’
As for Willard’s current stewardship, it’s going well. Despite the changing landscape he is still applying his biggest strength, which is player development.
“I haven’t really changed that mentality,” he said. “You might not get the long-term reward, but I still am a big believer in trying to improve our kids as the season goes. You get disappointed when kids leave after you put a lot of time and effort into that, but if I can get a kid to shoot 70 percent from the free-throw line when he was shooting 60 percent before, that is still going to help you during that season.”
At the end of his 12-year tenure in South Orange, Willard had begun incorporating more impact transfers – Quincy McKnight, Romaro Gill, Bryce Aiken, Alexis Yetna and Kadary Richmond being the most notable. That prepared him for today’s necessity of integrating transfers quickly. He’s also picked the brain of NBA front offices to learn, basically, how to be a general manager while mining the transfer portal.
“After my second year (at Maryland) my staff and I looked at what went wrong, what went right, where we hit and where we didn’t – where we spent money, where we didn’t spend enough money, and where do we not want to spend our money?” he said. “You can really miss in the portal, and when you’re spending money, it makes it a whole lot worse. We have to make sure it’s the right fit – it’s not just about making sure we get kids. We’re not the government – we can’t keep throwing money at (stuff) and make it happen.
“I look at it much more as, I’m a general manager now,’” he added. “You can’t just wing it. The winging it days are long gone in college basketball. Now with profit sharing, with school money, I have a meeting every day about what our plan is, how we’re going to spend the money, what each position’s worth, how we’re going to play (style-wise) next year.”
As we’ve seen elsewhere – Indiana being a poster case within the Big Ten – resources alone guarantee nothing.
“It’s definitely a new skill set,” Willard said. “But like everyone always says, you’d better adapt to the new times.”
Jerry Carino has covered the New Jersey sports scene since 1996 and the college basketball beat since 2003. Contact him at jcarino@gannettnj.com.
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