Summarize and humanize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in EnglishKevin Willard has agreed to become the next head coach at Villanova, a source familiar with negotiations confirmed to The Athletic early Sunday morning.Willard, who led Maryland to its first Sweet 16 since 2016 this season, has dominated headlines the last two weeks with his tenuous job security hanging over the Terps’ NCAA Tournament run. After Maryland lost to Florida 87-71 on Thursday, Willard told reporters, “I don’t know what I’m doing,” when asked directly about his future in College Park.“I haven’t talked to my agent, haven’t talked to my wife. I made a promise to this team that I was going to just focus on this team, and that’s all I’ve done. So I haven’t talked to anybody,” Willard continued. “I have an agent. I’m sure he’s talking to people because that’s what agents like to do. But I don’t know.”Further complicating the situation was the fact that Maryland athletic director Damon Evans, who hired Willard in 2022, agreed to leave College Park for the same position at SMU shortly before the Terps’ first March Madness game.“The guy who brought me here and who I really liked, who I was really appreciative of, he’s gone,” Willard said. “Right now, my biggest concerns in life are, I don’t know who my boss is going to be.”Willard went 65-38 in three seasons at Maryland, highlighted by leading this season’s Terps to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament for the first time in nine years. Before that, he spent 12 seasons in the Big East at Seton Hall, compiling a 225-161 record, including 105-113 in conference play. His move to the Big East comes after publicly blasting Maryland multiple times, calling into question the school’s commitment to men’s basketball and saying the Terps were “one of the worst, if not lowest” when it came to name, image and likeness money.For those comments, and his extended public waffling on whether to stay or go, Willard received some boos from fans before Maryland’s send-off for its Sweet 16 loss.Willard emphasized to The Athletic multiple times when the Terps were in Seattle for the first and second rounds that he loved coaching at Maryland, but he wanted the program to improve. Along with NIL money, he’d hoped to get an assistant athletic director assigned specifically to work with men’s basketball, a common practice across the NCAA. Maryland is also one of the few high-major schools that does not have a dedicated practice facility, an unusual shortcoming for a place with such rich basketball history.Though football is expected to command the majority of the up to $20.5 million NCAA schools will be permitted to distribute directly to their athletes in the coming revenue sharing system, Big East programs like Villanova are uniquely positioned to use most of their money for basketball, as most don’t sponsor FBS football programs (Connecticut is the lone exception).Villanova has been a college hoops powerhouse most of the last 15 years, winning the national championship in 2016 and 2018 under now-retired coach Jay Wright. But over the last three seasons, since Wright’s abrupt retirement in April 2022, the Wildcats have struggled. Wright’s replacement, longtime Villanova assistant Kyle Neptune, went 54-47 in three seasons and never made the NCAA Tournament, prompting new Villanova athletic director Eric Roedl to fire him the day before Selection Sunday.As for Willard, who turns 50 the day before the national championship game, he made the rounds on social media earlier in March for his frank talk about Maryland’s position amid coaching carousel speculation. He was offered a contract extension by former athletic director Damon Evans just days before Evans left for the same job at SMU, but Willard declined to sign it, emphasizing his displeasure with the school’s overall financial commitment to the basketball program. (Willard also acknowledged that negotiating a new deal when you don’t have an athletic director is awkward).“I wanted to spend an extra night in New York this year to celebrate Christmas with my team, and I was told that we can’t do that because it’s too expensive,” Willard said. “So I don’t know how we can be a top-tier program, and I can’t spend one extra night in New York because it’s too expensive.”In a read-between-the-lines moment, Willard even referenced Maryland losing a player (Hakim Hart) to Villanova through the transfer portal after the 2022-23 season due to Villanova’s NIL funding advantage.But in Willard’s new role, that shouldn’t be an issue any longer.(Photo: Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images)
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