Kevin Willard on planning for Maryland's future, Harris-Smith's big game and why he really wanted Derik Queen
The Maryland basketball coach had more interesting comments on Saturday.
If Kevin Willard has any uncertainty about his future at Maryland, he didn't sound like it on Saturday. At his second-round NCA Tournament media session, the Maryland basketball coach spoke about extensive planning for next season. At a time when every hour preparing for the next opponent -- Colorado State in this instance (Maryland-Colorado preview here) -- is valuable, he's putting significant time into long-term planning, which could be telling.
"I'm already mapping out what I want to do next year with the guys on our roster," Willard said. "We had a two-hour meeting about it this morning. We spent last night on Colorado State, breaking them down. This morning, we spent an hour and a half on Colorado State, and then we spent two hours on the portal and the roster ... It's what you have to do. It's part of the job now. I'd much rather be playing [and planning] than be back in College Park doing it, to be honest.
"We've talked a lot, because right now it's the portal season. We sit down every day for two hours and just see who's going in, what we're doing."
Rumors of mutual interest with Villanova popped up early in the week. Then Willard announced AD Damon Evans was leaving for SMU and said he'd turned down a contract extension from Evans on Selection Sunday. Then he spent a few minutes expressing his dissatisfaction with the program's funding. Add it all up and the interest in Willard's situation has compounded, though no conclusion can be reached yet. Maryland doesn't even have a permanent AD in place after Evans' departure.
Willard wasn't asked about those topics. While answering a question about coaching in the NBA, though, he did sneak repeat a one-liner throwback to his comment the other day about Evans refusing to pay for his team to stay an extra night in New York City at Christmas time.
"You stay at Four Seasons. You travel great, eat great ... "
A reporter filled Willard's brief pause with the joke: "You get to stay an extra night in New York," she said.
"You get to stay an extra night in New York," Willard repeated. "You're going to get me in trouble."
He also talked about DeShawn Harris-Smith's big game against GCU, why Derik Queen was such an important recruit, the transfer portal and more:
On DeShawn Harris-Smith's 5-for-5 performance against GCU
"Going from a guy that was starting and playing a lot of minutes, even as a freshman, to his role this year, sometimes kids need that a little bit. And I think he's really—he's continued to work hard, he's continued to have a great attitude in practice. But I actually think him sitting on the bench and seeing the game and seeing the guys has actually helped him dramatically. He's one of the smartest basketball players. I've always said he's probably, probably a little bit too smart, because he thinks a lot. But I think sitting on the bench and seeing what's going on has helped him kind of evolve as a player and a person."
On why getting Derik Queen was so important
"I've talked about this a lot. He was so highly touted, and being on that [Montverde Academy] team with Cooper [Flagg] and Liam [McNeeley] and the young man at Georgia—I forget his name, I apologize—it was really important because he was from Baltimore. He was the next big thing from Baltimore. And we really wanted to keep him in state—not to make a recruiting splash—but just to make a statement about keeping kids home. I thought we had done a good job in the first class of doing that. People talked about having the pressure of having a McDonald's All-American and having a kid that was the MVP. We just looked at it as a great opportunity to have a great young man and a phenomenal player. To his credit, he has worked really hard. We had a recruit on a visit early on—in early November, maybe late October—and the kid was making fun of Derik about how he didn't play well in practice. Derek said, 'Wait till you try to do this. This isn't easy.' Derik struggled a little bit in practice early but stuck with it with a great attitude. He's got that infectious personality, was so positive. He's a top five draft pick. I think he's definitely exceeded my expectations."
On recruiting high school players
"The freshman model is difficult because if you're going to bring a freshman in and pay a freshman—because you have to pay him—you better make sure what you're paying them is going to equal what they're giving you. No CEO in their right mind would pay someone out of college a million dollars and not have him have one sale, develop and work him, and then all of a sudden, he leaves and goes someplace else. The balance—the fact that we do have to—we have a budget. I know exactly how much money we have. I know how much money we can have. The portal is easier to work with because it's a proven asset. You're taking someone else's salesman that has a history of sales. It might not be in your company, may not be in your business, but you can see what he has. With freshmen, there's very few that can come in and affect this game at a really high level like Derek did. I think if you look at this year, there's maybe seven guys doing what Deiek's done."
On incoming recruit Chris Jeffrey
"I love Chris. Chris is coming in as a freshman. He's going to play minutes next year. I love him. That's the reason we're bringing him in. But you really have to balance the fact that you just can't pay someone that you're not going to play. You don't have unlimited funds. You're a GM. GMs don't go out and pay someone a million dollars and not play them. It just doesn't work that way. The model is constantly evolving. When you get rid of the COVID year, the sixth-year kids, and add profit sharing, you're going to have so many more schools with money. It's gotten extremely complicated putting your roster together. That's a long answer. So tired."
