Thursday was an interesting day in the NCAA tournament, not least of all for Kevin Willard.
After Maryland’s loss to Florida, Willard said he “wasn’t sure” what he was going to do, but he may have burned his bridges with Terrapin fans. Check this out from X. This is in College Park! If he’s not gone, he probably should be, possibly for his own safety. They’ll never forgive him for his behavior this March.
If you’ve missed it, he has ripped on the school, ripped on the lack of an AD and has seemingly flirted with Villanova, the only power conference job currently open. It’s hard to see how he could possibly go back with fan hostility as high as it is and losing to Florida, reportedly after skipping the team dinner Wednesday night, probably didn’t help. It’s too bad because Maryland had a decent season. We’ll come back to the Terps in a bit.
Florida sent them back to the DMV, 87-71 and it wasn’t really a game after halftime. The Gators really chomped them up in the second half.
They’ll move on to play Texas Tech as the Red Raiders came back from 16 down to knock off Arkansas in OT, 85-83 in a game that ended with brilliant play from both teams. We weren’t sure that the Razorbacks were worthy but they certainly made their case. That was a wonderful game.
Alabama, who Duke will see Saturday, had a tremendous outing against BYU, winning 113-88. Keep in mind what we say about great games: they’re above the norm. People tend to see a game like this and think, wow, those guys are really something! And they were on Thursday night, not least of all Mark Sears, who racked up 34 points with all but four coming on threes (he hit one two point basket and two free throws).
Alabama took 51 threes and hit 25 of those for 49 percent, which is crazy. Only 10 of their 35 shots came from two point shots (they also hit 18 of 21 free throws).
If we’re Duke and looking at that, the first thing you think is that Nate Oats is on record as wanting either threes or layups, and Duke can probably do a good job against layups. Can ‘Bama hit 25 threes again? We’ll see Saturday.
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The Friday games should be fun.
Ole Miss gets Michigan State and the Spartans just seem a bit too much for the Rebels. It’s hard to see Ole Miss pulling this out.
Kentucky and Tennessee should be a real barnburner. UT’s kids made a tactical error by talking a little too much before the game about being ready and so on. They gave UK fuel. Tough game to call. You basically have an offensive genius in Mark Pope vs. a guy who will kill you with body shots on defense in Rick Barnes. We’ll go with the new guy and the fact that Kentucky knows this level better than Tennessee. Meaning?
Well, meaning that institutionally, Kentucky gets it. And while there’s often a ton of pressure on UK, that’s not the case this time. And yes, it’s tough to beat a team three times, but we like Kentucky’s chances here.
Auburn has seemed vulnerable a lot lately and Michigan is a really interesting team. If not this game, then Auburn will lose in the regional finals to Houston. We like Michigan here because the Tigers have been so off their feed late in the season.
And yes, that means we’re riding with the Houston Cougars over Purdue.
Incidentally, if you missed it, all four #1 seeds are still alive.
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The Willard controversy is really fascinating. The toxicity has gotten to the point where you wonder if Villanova might have second thoughts, if that indeed is the plan (there’s been a lot of speculation but no proof). And since it’s a Catholic university, his behavior is not, shall we say, up to the Jay Wright standard. It’ll probably still go through if that is indeed the plan, but we’d sure have second thoughts.
We don’t know how much credibility to give this video since we don’t know anything about the guy who made it, but he says this: 1) football is a joke (hard to argue), 2) basketball is imploding (seems to be true), 3) there is no AD which is really bad timing and 4) despite the Big Ten money, which is why Maryland left the ACC in the first place, the athletic department is broke again. If that’s true, how in the world did that happen? He concludes by saying basically that everything is a mess and that Maryland should be a basketball school but it isn’t really trying.
And he’s right about that of course. Lefty Driesell overpromised when he said Maryland would be the UCLA of the East, but he was absolutely correct about Maryland’s strengths. It should be the dominant recruiting power in the DMV and should really be able to recruit from a car rather than a plane. The talent there is that good.
Yet somehow, other than the 2003 team, Maryland always seems to come up short. They used to blame Duke and UNC for it, and now apparently they’re going to blame Willard.
Thing is, he’s not entirely wrong.
Maryland should be the Duke of the Big Ten. Sorry! We know that hurts, Terp fans, but you know in your hearts that that’s true. If things were well-managed, you would be. It’s just that things rarely are in College Park.
The other day we pumped Kenny Blakeney for the job because he’s done well at Howard and that’s a very tough job. However, the better candidate is probably Duane Simpkins. Currently at American, the former Terp point guard looks like a born coach. Like Blakeney, he is a native of the DMV and like Blakeney played at DeMatha for the great Morgan Wooten. We’re not sure Willard could come back now if he wanted to, so if Simpkins would take the job, he’s probably the right hire. The fans will love him and he won’t even have to move.
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