‘I know they hate me’

Kevin Willard’s split from Maryland men’s basketball was more than two months ago, but the coach is still facing questions about the nature of his departure.

After The Baltimore Sun reported Monday about the friction between Willard, former athletic director Damon Evans and Maryland’s administration over disagreements on finances and athletic department structure, Willard acknowledged that Terps fans are right to have frustrations over how his tenure ended.

“I know it turned out ugly, but I love the place. It’s a great place,” Willard said in an interview with HoopsHQ’s Seth Davis on Wednesday. “I like the fan base. I know they hate me, but I loved living there. I loved everything about it.”

Willard denied an interview request from The Sun.

According to the HoopsHQ article, Willard was told by his agent three days before the Terps’ opening round NCAA Tournament game that Villanova was interested in him. But Willard claimed he wanted to hold off on those talks until after Maryland was eliminated. “You handle it,” Willard said he told his agent. “That’s what I pay you for.”

“It was a really weird feeling because there was no thought process on me leaving,” Willard told HoopsHQ. “But when the guy that hired you leaves and now all of a sudden you have no idea who’s coming in, and oh by the way there’s a really, really great program that wants you, that’s when you have to start thinking about things.”

One of Willard’s biggest points of contention, and one he chose to make public during the postseason, was his team not being allowed to stay an extra night after playing Syracuse in Brooklyn, New York, last December because it cost too much. Willard said in March that was one reason he needed to make “fundamental changes” to the program.

Harry Geller, who managed the Terps’ NIL spending, told The Sun that Willard also disagreed with his staff over how to divide resources across the roster. Maryland men’s basketball did not have a full-time general manager, who would have handled those responsibilities, under Willard, meaning the coach had to rely on volunteers like Geller to manage the program’s finances.

Still, that night in New York was one of the only times Willard was told no by his bosses. The coach received almost every upgrade he asked Evans for. And yet the demands didn’t stop, which ultimately pushed Evans to devise his own exit strategy, The Sun reported.

“My point about the New York deal was, that was an example of what was going on,” Willard told HoosHQ. “It was nothing horrendous or anything. I just wanted a little bit more control. I wanted a little bit more flexibility with some of the things within the program. I didn’t want to deal with certain people. It wasn’t like I was asking for a lot of money or anything. I just wanted my program to get treated better.”

The Sun reported that Willard told players he planned to stay at Maryland throughout the tournament and was only using the Villanova opening as leverage for his own contract negotiations. Rodney Rice, now at Southern California, told media in San Francisco after the Terps’ season-ending loss to Florida that Willard was still telling players he wasn’t leaving through that day.

But players began realizing their coach’s focus was elsewhere when their agents started shopping them in the transfer portal the week leading up to the Sweet 16, The Sun reported.

“I was as honest with my players as I was with the media,” Willard told HoopsHQ. “I told them exactly what was happening. They knew exactly what was going on the whole time. Why do you think they played so well?”

Have a news tip? Contact Taylor Lyons at tlyons@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/TaylorJLyons.