Maryland AD Damon Evans fires back at men's basketball coach Kevin Willard
Maryland men's basketball will hit the court again on Thursday night and the Terrapins are searching for their first road win of the season. But it won't come easy. The 14-5 Terps are off to Illinois to face the No. 17 Illini who are often tough to beat on the road. Kevin Willard's squad has lost all four games when they've gone away from Maryland by a combined 17 points.
Last week, following a close win over Nebraska at home, Willard spoke with the media about the challenges with their schedule. The Maryland head coach believes the schedule helps dicate how the team plays. He says at the end of the day, nobody cares about it outside of his team and himself -- not even the administration.
"I've said this for as long as I've been a coach, sometimes your schedule will dictate how you play," Willard said last week. "And you cannot let your schedule affect how you get better and what your goal is overall. And we've had a definitely, a tough go. Nebraska's had a tough go. Northwestern played Sunday at noon against Michigan State, we played Monday night at 9 and had to travel. And people say well, that's not that big of a deal, what's the difference? That gives a team a whole -- one team is coming off a bye week and has a whole, another day of rest and preparation.
"Fans don't care about it, your administration doesn't care about it, Twitter doesn't care about it, Facebook, I don't care what it is. They don't give a s***. So the biggest thing is just getting them to understand it, because I'm just another spoiled guy that's just bitching and moaning about the schedule. And I'm OK with that."
But on Wednesday Athletic Director Damon Evans appeared to send a message to his basketball coach on a weekly radio show. Evans bluntly indicated blaming the schedule is an excuse and he doesn't believe in excuses.
"I don't believe in excuses. You have a schedule. We all know what the schedule is. And flying from the West Coast to the East Coast, we've had sports that have been doing that for years. This is not the first time that these things have happened. I'm not going to say that there's some things that you do't have to adjust to and adapt to. You're flying out there on a charter plane, four-to-five hours, you land, you get yourself together. So you make the necessary adjustments. Making up excuses, we all knew what we were getting to in when we expanded this conference, and so I'm just not an excuse guy.
"I'm not going to make up excuses. I'm not going to use travel as a reason why we're not winning. I'm not going to use the way that the schedule set up as a reason that we're not winning. There are a lot of factors that contribute when a team doesn't win, and sometimes we want to pick out the things – and I'm talking about people collectively – just want to focus on certain things … I got to focus on, if it's me, how do we get better? How do we figure the situation out that is before us, and prepare ourselves in the right manner to do so?"
There might not be any love lost between the two, and Evans was clearly sending a message to his coach.
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Trent began writing and covering Michigan athletics back in 2020. He became a credentialed member of the media in 2021. Trent began writing with Sports Illustrated in 2023 and became the Senior Writer for Michigan Wolverines On SI for the 2024 football season. Trent is also the managing editor for Maryland On SI. Trent’s love of sports and being able to tell stories to fans is what made him get into writing.
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