A year after Mark Turgeon’s exit, Kevin Willard has Maryland men’s basketball rolling

Maryland males’s basketball was a program with out an identification precisely one yr in the past.

The Terps and former coach Mark Turgeon mutually agreed to half methods on Dec. 3, 2021, after a 5-3 begin to the 2021-22 season. A yr later, Maryland wakened 8-0 underneath new coach Kevin Willard after he notched his first ranked win because the Terps knocked off No. 16 Illinois at Xfinity Heart Friday.

When the ultimate buzzer sounded, the coach informed his gamers to go rejoice with a raucous sold-out pupil part and the remainder of Maryland’s 16,390 followers — the Terps’ highest listed attendance because it offered out a win over Michigan on March 8, 2020, that clinched a share of the Large Ten common season title.

Hakim Hart high-fived followers within the stands as Maryland gamers reveled within the cheers of a gold-clad mob. 

“It means rather a lot to have a crowd like that,” Hart mentioned. “[It] simply provides us a lift, particularly on the defensive finish.”

The win didn’t carry the identical weight because the one which secured a convention championship lower than three years in the past. However the event itself was emblematic of the change this system’s been by means of in a comparatively brief span of time.

The Terps fielded profitable groups in recent times underneath Turgeon regardless of not reaching the nationwide championship summit that’s eluded them for over 20 years.

[No. 22 Maryland men’s basketball remains undefeated, takes down No. 16 Illinois, 71-66]

Maryland made the Candy 16 in 2016, a 2016-17 squad began the season 20-2 — though ultimately sputtered to a NCAA event first spherical exit — and the Terps’ 2019-20 workforce captured a convention crown earlier than they had been stripped of an opportunity for postseason glory by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nevertheless, the Terps’ attendance has steadily declined since 2016, other than a small leap through the 2019-20 season.

A disgruntled fan base watched on as Turgeon departed following the poor begin to the 2021-22 season and witnessed Maryland’s first dropping common season 1993 underneath interim coach Danny Manning. 

Going through a large inflection level in this system’s historical past, the Terps turned to Willard to reenergize Maryland’s help, which he started to do earlier than considered one of his groups even touched the courtroom by securing native recruits.

Nonetheless, attendance at Willard’s first appearances towards inferior opponents remained low with a mean of 11,775 followers by means of 5 video games, together with the bumper crowd towards the Illini. 

“It is good to see some followers right here, I imply, what the hell do the Maryland followers need,” Illinois coach Brad Underwood mentioned after Friday’s recreation. “That was electrical. This jogged my memory of the yr I got here in right here at Oklahoma State, when you possibly can shoot a rattling shotgun on this place within the Coppin State recreation and never hit anyone. That is what it ought to be concerning the Large Ten.”

However forward of the Illini matchup, the Terps handily received the video games they need to’ve received and had been victorious of their first true exams towards Saint Louis and Miami.

In that point, Willard grew to become the primary Maryland coach to begin their tenure 4-0, and has since doubled that quantity of wins. He additionally grew to become the primary Terps coach to get this system ranked within the AP ballot of their first season on the helm, setting the stage for a top-25 matchup towards Illinois as Maryland’s Large Ten opener.

[Kevin Willard’s ties to Louisville highlighted after Maryland men’s basketball’s win]

Not solely did Willard recruits like Jahmir Younger — who hit a three-point dagger with 14 seconds remaining — ship. It wasn’t simply holdovers from final yr who’ve blossomed like Hart, who mixed with Younger for all 9 of the Terps’ makes from behind the arc. A flock of followers did, too.

Willard mentioned the gang was “off the charts” and the pair of sharpshooters praised the supporters that gave Maryland a lift over a highly-rated Illinois workforce, one which no participant has skilled during the last two seasons.

“We was positively feeding off of [the crowd] rather a lot,” Younger mentioned. “They introduced the vitality … I felt like we got here off robust they usually had been an enormous cause for that. So we thank them for that. We’d like them to maintain popping out.”

That vitality helped Willard and the new-look Terps proceed to reap the rewards of offseason acquisitions and preparation to date as they remained considered one of simply 15 unbeaten groups within the nation.

With video games towards Wisconsin and No. 13 Tennessee forward of Maryland’s subsequent house recreation towards a future convention foe in No. 21 UCLA, the Terps will hope to keep up their present kind to create one other spectacle for followers, one thing Willard hopes to normalize throughout his reign at Maryland.

“I need to get this program again to a championship degree,” Willard mentioned. “To get it again to a championship degree we’d like a constructing like that each evening … If we will get that each evening, you are gonna win extra video games and also you’re gonna lose.”