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Stop the Presses! Kevin Willard Made a Snarky Joke Comment
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Villanova lost to Utah State on Friday to crash out of the NCAA tournament, but it was this in-game comment from Kevin Willard that had people talking:
Clearly the dude was joking, which he later confirmed. He’s not REALLY going to to fire his staff in the middle of a basketball game, nor is he going to fire his staff immediately after a basketball game following a first season at Villanova in which the Wildcats won 24 games and looked more like a Jay Wright team than a Kyle Neptune team.
Plus, if you’ve watched even one Kevin Willard press conference, you know the guy has always been somewhat of a horse’s ass. It wasn’t even two months ago he said of heckling Maryland fans – “They wasted a Saturday, I don’t know what the fuck they were doing. They’ve got nothing better to do on a Saturday than look at my bald ass.” Same Willard who burned every bridge on his way out of College Park and has been generally regarded as a jerk over the years.
If you knew anything about Willard at all, this is nothing. It’s a typical sardonic comment for him. Maybe it’s unfamiliarity with the guy from a non-college basketball crowd, but I think we are very bad at detecting sarcasm and facetiousness in the greater Philadelphia region. We are very blunt and direct with one another and therefore layered comments that are made with tongue planted firmly in cheek sometimes go over our heads.
But – having established that this was just snark, it’s dumb snark. “I’m gonna fire my staff.” You hired the staff, bozo! They follow your direction. I know you don’t have Matt Hodge and you’ve got a thin front court in year #1, but you are the head coach and therefore all coaching decisions funnel upwards to you.
This would be like Nick Sirianni saying “I’m gonna fire my offensive coordinator” when the offensive coordinator is running Nick’s offense. Basically the thing we argued about for the last 8 months.
Anyway, good season for Nova. They’re back on track. Now they gotta keep it going in the portal and improve this thing to where they’re competing with St. John’s and UConn in the Big East.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com