Maryland's Quick Hire of Buzz Williams Follows Willard's Turbulent Exit
In a swift move, Maryland has appointed Buzz Williams as its new basketball coach after Kevin Willard's messy departure, highlighting ongoing changes in college basketball leadership.
Now that we can catch our breath for a few days before things get rolling down in San Antonio, here’s the latest update on the coaching carousel in D-I men’s hoops.
The tally as of Tuesday is 48 job changes. If you told me we got to 50 by the time the Auburn and Florida tip at 6:09 p.m. ET on Saturday, I would 100% believe that.
Our most recent headline was one that moved quickly: Maryland has hired Texas A&M’s Buzz Williams after Kevin Willard’s controversial departure from College Park to Villanova.
Willard’s exit was the one we’d been waiting a week-plus for. Here’s my newser on that, which includes a few additional reported items surrounding Willard’s hostile exit from Maryland.
With the transfer portal in full swing, Maryland had to act quickly as the only high-major opening. Willard’s hire was made official by Villanova on Sunday. And by Tuesday, Maryland had announced its agreement with Williams, who has 11 NCAA Tournament appearances across his stops at Texas A&M, Virginia Tech and Marquette.
Texas A&M is now the only high-major job on the market, and it’s entirely feasible that its next coach will come from a power conference, which will trigger the dominos once again.
