University of Maryland Athletics

Willard was named the new head coach of the Maryland men's basketball program by Damon Evans, Barry P. Gossett Director of Athletics on March 21, 2022. 
 
In his first season at the helm, the 16-year veteran led the Terps to a 22-13 overall record, a NCAA Tournament Second Round appearance, and a national Top-25 ranking throughout the season. Willard became the first coach in program history to achieve 20 wins, a national ranking, and a berth to the NCAA Tournament in his first season. Additionally, he was also the first coach in Maryland history to start their tenure 8-0 and was the first coach in Big Ten history to win each of his first seven games by at least 15 points.
  The 2022-23 campaign was also highlighted by five Top 25 wins including a 68-54 sellout win over No. 3 Purdue, a perfect 10-0 record in home Big Ten games, and a 16-1 mark at the XFINITY Center which saw three sellouts overall. The Terps finished the year ranked No. 32 in the NET (NCAA Evaluation Tool) after being as high as No. 6 and spent 11 weeks ranked or receiving votes in the Top 25 with a high of No. 13 in the AP Poll.
 
With a renewed focus on recruiting the DMV, Willard and his staff assembled a top-15 recruiting class leading into the 2023-24 season and has found success through the transfer portal in players like Jahmir Young, Patrick Emilien, and Don Carey who all played key roles in 2022-23.
 
Over the last five seasons, Willard has been one of the winningest coaches in terms of NET Quad 1 victories. His teams have combined for 29 Quad 1 wins in that span which ranks among the Top 15 for active coaches since 2018-19.
 
In his career as a head coach, his teams have 33 wins over Associated Press Top-25 teams including 19 wins over Top-15 teams, 15 wins over Top-10 teams and seven wins over Top-5 teams.
 
Overall, teams under Willard have reached the NCAA Tournament seven times with nine 20-win seasons. He has posted 10 consecutive .500-or-better records and 12 total during his career.
 
In 2023-24, he will look to become the fifth active Big Ten head coach to amass 300-or-more career victories as he enters the season with a 292-222 mark.
  Before taking over in College Park, Willard returned Seton Hall to its status as one of the premier programs in the Big East during his tenure from 2010-22. He reached five NCAA Tournament appearances in the last six events that were played. He led the Pirates to the Big East Tournament Title in 2015-16 and the regular-season title in 2019-20. He was the 2016 Big East Coach of the Year and the 2020 USBWA District II Coach of the Year during those runs. Additionally, he was a three-time Peter A. Carlesimo Met Writers Coach of the Year (2016, 2017, 2019) and the 2019 NABC District 5 Coach of the year. He also has the most non-conference wins of any coach in the nation against Big Ten teams since 2014-15. 
 
In addition to his coach of the year accolades, he was also named one of Forbes Top 10 NCAA Basketball Coaches for the Next 10 Years in 2017. His teams won the prestigious NABC Team Academic Excellence Award for five straight years (2016-20) and earned three NCAA Academic Progress Rate Public Recognition Awards. 


In a six-year span from 2016-17 through 2021-22, he was one of 10 active head coaches in the Power 6 conferences to achieve a regular-season championship, a conference tournament championship, and a conference coach of the year honor. He also finished in the top-four in the Big East on six occasions. In 2018, he led the Pirates to their first victory in an NCAA Tournament since 2004. 
 
Through his 12 seasons at Seton Hall, Willard produced a 225-161 overall record. He ranks second all-time in victories (225) in Seton Hall basketball history and has the most wins in conference play in program history (110). He is also the 11th all-time winningest coach in Big East history, dating to the conference's inception in 1979. The Pirates also had 82 combined wins between the Big East regular-season and postseason, second only to Villanova in the conference, since the 2015-16 season. 

His teams at Seton Hall were ranked in the Top 25 in five of his last eight seasons with a high ranking of No. 8 in the 2019-20 season. In 2020-21 the Pirates were ranked as high as No. 15 and spent eight weeks in the polls. 

Willard’s Seton Hall teams also posted an 11-5 record against Big Ten teams over his last eight seasons, which included wins over Maryland in 2018 and 2019. Willard's teams also won road games at Michigan, Iowa, Penn State and Rutgers and beat Indiana at home. Willard held the most non-conference wins over Big Ten teams of any coach since 2014-15. 


In 2021-22, Willard led the Pirates to a 21-11 overall record and an 11-8 mark in conference play. That included wins over No. 4 Michigan and No. 7 Texas as part of six NET Quad 1 victories. 

Willard coached the Big East Player of the Year in two of his last three years in Myles Powell (2020) and Sandro Mamukelashvili  (2021). He mentored two Big East Most Improved Players of the Year in Powell (2018) and Romaro Gill (2020). He coached the Big East Tournament MVP, Isaiah Whitehead (2016); the Big East Defensive Player of the Year, Fuquan Edwin (2014) and Gill (2020); the Big East Rookie of the Year, Angel Delgado (2015) and the Big East Scholar-Athlete of the Year, Michael Nzei (2019) and Ike Obiagu (2021). 

Whitehead, Delgado, Powell and Mamukelashvili all earned All-American honors and Consensus First-Team All-Big East honors, and all in the last seven years. All four went on to play in the NBA with Powell playing for the Philadelphia 76ers this season and Mamukelashvili playing for the Milwaukee Bucks. 

Powell was Seton Hall's first Consensus First-Team All-American since 1953. This past season, Jared Rhoden was named to the All-Big East First Team marking the sixth time in seven years that Willard coached a first-team all-conference honoree. Overall, he mentored 15 All-Big East selections and three Big East All-Rookie Team honorees. 

Making a huge emphasis on effort in the classroom, Willard's student-athletes combined for 72 BIG EAST All-Academic team selections, and the program boasted a perfect single-year academic progress rate in six of the nine NCAA reports since he served as head coach as well as perfect multi-year APR scores in 2016 and 2017. The NCAA has also recognized Seton Hall with NCAA APR Public Recognition awards for boasting an APR in the top 10 percent in the country three consecutive years from 2015-17. The National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) gave the program the Team Academic Excellence Award for five consecutive years from 2016-20 after finishing the academic year with a grade-point-average above 3.0. 

Willard showed to be a strong evaluator and recruiter of talent, as he brought in a consensus top-15 national recruiting class in 2014, led by Whitehead, the program's first McDonald's All-American since 2001 and just the fifth all-time. His 2021-22 recruiting class was also rated in the top 25 by 247Sports. 

The 2020-21 season marked Seton Hall and Willard's sixth consecutive top-four finish in the Big East Conference, one of the best basketball conferences in the country. Only Villanova also completed six straight top-four finishes in the same span. 

Willard was named head coach of the Seton Hall men's basketball program on March 29, 2010. He became the 19th head coach in Seton Hall history joining the Pirates after three years serving as the head coach at Iona. In 2007, he had inherited a Gaels team that had won just two games the prior season. In his first year at the helm, the Gaels had a 10-win improvement, ranking as one of the top turnarounds in NCAA Div. I. Then in year three in 2009-10, Willard guided Iona to a 21-10 overall record, and he was named MAAC Coach of the Year.

Prior to the start of his career as a head coach, Willard was an assistant and associate head coach for six years at Louisville, where he was mentored by Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer Rick Pitino. Willard also credits his father, Ralph, as one of his coaching influences. Ralph Willard enjoyed a successful 19-year run as the head coach at Western Kentucky, Pittsburgh and Holy Cross, winning 336 games and advancing to six NCAA Tournaments.

At Louisville, Willard was responsible for assisting with the Cardinals' game preparations, scouting and preparing game plans. He also served as chief recruiting coordinator. During his tenure, Louisville was ranked in the Top 25 for five seasons and reached the postseason in each of his six years. The squad reached the NCAA Tournament on four occasions including a visit to the 2005 Final Four, the first time in 19 years that the Cardinals had advanced that deep into the postseason. In his six seasons at Louisville, the Cardinals posted a phenomenal 142-58 record averaging nearly 24 wins per season.

Prior to Louisville, Willard worked with Pitino as a coaching associate with the Boston Celtics for four years. His duties with the Celtics included game and practice preparation, scouting and assisting the coaching staff in all facets of basketball operations. He also provided advance scouting, videotape breakdowns and assisted with individual workouts prior to games.

A basketball lifer, Willard played point guard on the Division I level for four years; the last three coming at the University of Pittsburgh. He earned Big East All-Academic honors while appearing in 60 games for the Panthers. He spent his freshman season at Western Kentucky, where he played in the backcourt and sank over 40 percent of his three-point field goal attempts.

Willard hails from New York and was born in Huntington on Long Island, but played his high school basketball at Bowling Green High School (Ky.) while his father was the head coach at Western Kentucky. He earned second-team All-State honors as a senior and helped his team to a combined 76-15 record in his final three prep seasons.

Willard is married to the former Julie Wagner and they have two sons, Colin, who was born in August 2006 and Chase born in June 2008.

Updated June 5, 2023