After suffering one of the biggest blowout losses of the NCAA Tournament’s Second Round, one Big Ten head coach had the officials in his crosshairs.
Speaking to the media after last night’s 73-51 loss to Alabama, Maryland head coach Kevin Willard ripped the officials for some foul calls that he disagreed with. He feels that some of the founds changed the course of the game and that the officials can’t afford to make bad calls in an NCAA Tournament game.
“The second foul call was mysterious and even the third one,” Willard said, via Saturday Tradition. “I played [Julian Reese] with two fouls all year. You know, you can’t call that second foul. Not in an NCAA Tournament game. That’s just my feeling on it.
“I thought it was a horrible call and it changed the outcome of the game. I can elaborate a lot on but I will probably get in a lot of trouble. I can go in that much trouble or do you want me going in this much trouble? The second call was a terrible foul call. You can’t take our best player out of the game when the game was as physical as it was. It was a horrible call.”
Willard said that the call changed the course of the entire game as he had to change up his usage of Julian Reese, one of his best players.
Not the result we wanted, but proud of the fight all season long. Thank you #TerpNation for all your support! pic.twitter.com/QBHp5EBkDz
— Maryland Men’s Basketball (@TerrapinHoops) March 19, 2023
Maryland finishes the 2022-23 season with a 22-13 overall record. It was a significant improvement over last year’s 14-17 campaign under Mark Turgeon and Danny Manning.
The future looks bright for the Terrapins if Kevin Willard can lead them to just a little bit of improvement over this past season.
Will Maryland make the NCAA Tournament again next year?