The Kevin Sheehan Show - Willard Staying or Leaving?

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

Kevin and Thom today on Thom's birthday! The boys talked NCAA Tournament brackets, RG3, Kevin Willard's comments to Kevin on radio today about his future at Maryland, the Lady Terps' epic win over Alabama, and George Foreman.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Cheehan Show. Here's Kevin. Tommy's here. I am here. The show's presenting sponsor is always,

Window Nation, 86690 Nation. WindowNation.com if you need new windows. It is a special day here on the show because one of us is celebrating a birthday. Happy birthday, Tommy. Aren't you glad that I remembered that your birthday was today? Yeah, I am. Yeah. I'm sure glad.

You see, unlike you, I don't shy away from celebrating my time on this earth. Yeah. Because it's such a miracle. I mean, I've treated my body like a $20 hooker for the past 50 years. And today I turned 71. Wow. Wow. you know what first of all I didn't know that secondly I did ask you you told me it was your

birthday I would never tell you it was my birthday which by the way it was a month ago um February 24th but um I at first when you told me it was your birthday today I did remember that our birthdays were fairly close to one another and I said to you oh my god are we both Pisces I'm a Pisces and you said, no, you're not. You think you're a what? An Aries, I think I am. It's funny the way you said that, because honestly, I couldn't tell you anything else about, you know, signs and dates other than I know that I'm a Pisces. And for some reason, I thought Pisces started at the end of February and went through the end of March.

but I actually think it may start at the beginning of February and go through early March. Should I look it up? I don't really care. Why don't you care about horoscope stuff? Because it's made up bullshit. How's that? Is that good enough reason? I kind of agree with you, but there's so many people that swear by it.

They're just nuts, right? It's voodoo. Look, there's a lot of voodoo in the world that people swear by. Yeah. But I'm looking forward. Let me tell you how I'm going to celebrate with my family. I'm going to the James Joyce Pub in Baltimore for dinner. Wow.

Okay. And then I'm going to a place called Mustang Sally's for Duckpin Bowling. I was going to say the ranch or the bowling place. Duck pin bowling, baby. Duck pin bowling. That is, how are you going to – let me just mention something to you. The last time I bowled, it was not duck pin. It was big balls and big 10 pins.

And I've told you this before. I was a very good bowler as a young person. Yes, I know. And I was at a reunion, a family reunion over the summer, and bowling was one of the activities. And I was horrible. I mean, it was so, oh, God, it was so bad. It was embarrassingly bad.

What's horrible? Because I was a very average bowler. Like I bawled in a league many years ago when I worked at a hospital up in a Poconos. I think my average was like 145 or something like that. That's not bad. I can tell you that I think I was 13 or 14 years old, and I probably, I had an average in the 160s, 170s somewhere around there. 160s probably was the average. And I bowled on this, on a team, John Adkins, Bobby Carpenter, Terry Flynn. Shout out to you three guys.

Because we spent a lot of time together. And they, all of us were pretty good bowlers. I think John was probably the best. John was an excellent bowler. They were older than me, too. They were like a couple of years older than me. But we bowled in tournaments, in leagues, all over the place. and I was really into it.

The reason I got into bowling is my mother was a bowler, and she bowled in leagues, and she got me into it. Now, I can tell you, I stopped bowling when I was probably 15 because basketball started to kind of take over, you know, 14 or 15 maybe, because basketball and other sports just started to dominate the weekends, and that's where the leagues were. They were Saturday mornings, Sunday morning. etc. But look at you. You were like a renaissance man when you were young. A fly fisherman?

I was a fly fisherman. A champion bowler? Actually, you know what? I probably was part of a championship team. We won some tournaments. But you know what, Kevin? What? Kevin. It's not your birthday. No, it's not. Pise's February 20th through March 20th. And then Aries, March 21st through April 20th. Right now, for a million dollars, I could not name all of the signs. I mean, I'm familiar with, you know, the names, you know, Libra, Virgo, Leo, cancer. I know my mother is a cancer. I know my father is an Aquarius. That's all I know, and I'm a Pisces. I don't know anything about what it even means to be a Pisces. I don't know what it means about it so aries is the ram you're a by the way that kind of fits um uh you're you're a

ram and i'm a fish so there we go well happy birthday and it sounds like you've got a wonderful birthday uh lined up what what would you be happy with uh in bowling tonight with i mean duck pin's it's hard you know there's never been a perfect game in duck pin bowling It's just so hard. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you have three balls instead of two. There's never been a perfect game in Duckpin?

Before you ever say to me again, is that true? Think to yourself, would Tommy make something up? It's not that I think you'd make it up, but I definitely think you could be wrong. No, there's never been a perfect game in Duckpin bowling, at least recorded. You know, there's three balls you get per frame. The pins are smaller. The balls are smaller. We used to take the kids when they were younger because they would put bumpers in the gutters.

And, you know, the kids could hold the balls real easy and stuff. But I always enjoy duck pin bowling. And that's a Baltimore thing. I know it's your birthday. A Maryland thing. I know it's your birthday. But do you mind if I just add in another personal story? Oh, absolutely.

You know what? It's your podcast. So growing up, We had in Bethesda, we had a, you know, a duck pin bowling alley, which was on West Bard Avenue, which it still exists, it's still there. And then there was, you know, big balls, you know, a bowling alley on River Road, where the Whole Foods is and the Leto's is, for those of you that know that part of Bethesda. and the duck pin bowling alley had pinball machines.

So that was the only reason I ever went to that bowling alley. Of course you probably went there for a birthday party or something in bold. But I didn't really bowl duck pin bowling, but we were always in there and in the 7-Eleven on River Road in Bethesda playing pinball. Which, by the way, brings me to another quick story because a friend of mine who I've mentioned to you on this show before, Andy Truesdale is in Vegas, and he sent me pictures of pinball machines yesterday because there was some pinball museum or something in Vegas. He went to it, and he's like, do any of these look familiar to you?

And I said, no, but one of them was a Captain Fantastic Elton John pinball machine, which I kind of vaguely remember. he says he remembered that one, but I did not remember any of the others. And he was the one that we would give the first quarter to, and he'd get 10 games up on whatever machine we were playing, and then we could kind of play for hours on end. And if the games, if the free games got to, you know, down to like two or three, we'd just turn it over to Andy and let him light it up. He was a pinball wizard. All right. What else were you going to say about your birthday? That's it, boss. That's it.

So I got to say. Well, have fun tonight. Not surprising that the Shians didn't get an invite. Well, again, you pull this all the time. You don't like to go anywhere. You don't like to do anything. That's not true. That's not true at all.

I've never told you that. I love going places and doing things we do them all the time. It's just that for whatever reason. I'll change the reservation for six. Well, it's in Baltimore. tonight, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Go ahead. Let's change the reservation. It's a six, and we'll meet you up there. What time? Bowling is 7 p.m. Because here's what's true, and I don't know why it's true. You're in my neighborhood occasionally hanging out, and you don't even let me know until you're gone.

So you're going to call back or text me when we'd finish recording this podcast to say, yeah, they didn't have a table for six. So just tell me that now. I'm going to be in your neighborhood. And I'll tell you exactly when in April, I'm going to be there because King's Soul is playing at the Palisades Hub. Yeah. I'll be there April 26th, the Saturday.

Mark it down. You know, that's draft day. That is an NFL draft day. But you're coming in and it'll be a third round. Yeah, that's the, well, it's the fourth, yeah, it's the fourth, fifth and sixth and seventh rounds. Whatever it is. And, but you know what? I'm putting it into my phone right now.

April 26th. All right. Let me just tell you, I'm pretty, I know we're in town because I got invited to do something. thing on that Thursday night, which I had to pass on because it's the, you know, night one of the draft. But day three of the draft, that was for us when we were just up-and-comers in the business. Send Sheehan and Laverro out to the stadium to do, yeah, to do, oh, 10 a.m. until 8 p.m. I think one of those days we were on for like 10 hours, not an exaggeration. Yeah, the one day that was memorable

was when RG3 came into the stadium on a helicopter. Yeah. Did he demand the helicopter, or was that a Snyder thing? I'm thinking that was a Snyder thing. I don't think he demanded that yet. He's making friends and influencing people on social media these days. That guy. I don't even pay attention.

I know you do. Tell me what he's done now. Is he talking about safe spaces? Yeah, a little bit. Then he declared that, you know, the whole issue, I don't want to get into it. That's not, that's not going to go down the past. Why? What is it? Is it something? What's the major political topic that he waited?

Okay. Well, he thought that sports talk shows shouldn't be talking about Jackie Robinson being scrubbed from the Defense Department website because it was too political for sports talk shows. and it had no business on them. Oh, God. Jesus. And by the way, he got roasted big time on that.

Mark my words, in two years, this guy is a Republican candidate for office in Texas in some office. Really? You think a Republican candidate? Well, yes, Republican. Really? I honestly would have no clue as to his political bent. I would not have guessed that. Yeah, I think he's the first one to choose me. That's who I'm going with. Well, yeah, there's no doubt that he has always struck me as somebody that could absolutely be, you know, a congressman from the 35th district of Texas near Waco, Texas.

You know, no doubt that he could win. Because here's the thing. Forget about. the way we feel about him and his self-absorption and, you know, all of the, you know, ridiculous, you know, takes he has. He's not stupid and he can really, he can really communicate. He's always been an excellent communicator. He had you on day one with the first flight that flew overhead. You were in love with him. Oh, I was. Believe me, I will totally admit to that.

And here's the main reason why he'll seek office, because he'll need a job. Well, don't you think he's making a mint off social media? Doesn't he have millions of followers? Yes, he does. Tom, there's a lot of people out there. We get so wrapped up, and this goes for a lot of different things, that we know all the details of, or at least the majority of them. And we kind of, it's funny, when you have an opinion about a sports

thing that is in another market, you never, nine times out of ten, you have no real sense like the people who are there and are living it day to day have of it. And that's part of the RG3 story. People in this, around the country, they don't have a clue. They see a guy that's gregarious. He's got personality. You know, he can really talk. And if you agree with him on social media. He's great, I guess. That's why one of these days, the 30 for 30 will be exceptional. And it'll be probably very surprising for a lot of people. Yes. Yes, you're right about that. Okay. Happy birthday. And no, we can't, we can't make it tonight. But April 26th, I've got down in my phone to remind me a week before and two days before. so that we can schedule something, at least, you know, drinks and cocktails.

You guys can come to the house, and we can hang out before King's Soul at Palisades. Look, I'm always coming in the house if I get to come in the front door. Yeah, okay. Okay, Doc. Nice try. Nice try. All right, so several things to get to here in the opening of the show. We'll start with the NCAA tournament. The Grand Canyon over Maryland thing didn't really work out for you. And Maryland won by 32 in that game. But you have more sweet 16 teams in your bracket than I have. I have just eight left. You have 10 left. But our final fours, which are, you know, identical. We came up with the same final four. I've got no, well, no, we didn't come up with the same final four.

Maryland eliminated in the first round. I have Maryland over Michigan State and Maryland over Duke. That's right. Yeah. You said to me before, well, we have the same final four. Yeah, that was the mistake on my part. Who was your final four? You got Maryland going the whole thing.

Yeah. I have Michigan State and Florida and Duke and Houston. Right. Okay. So we each have our final four teams still intact. So what did you think of Maryland's thrilling win the other day? Did you watch it? Or did you just watch the highlights?

I watched every game. I watched both games that Maryland played. Yeah. I watched about four games in the tournament. I watched the Gonzaga game. I watched the Duke game the other night the other day, and then I watched both of Maryland games. You know what?

Somebody's got a rebound for Maryland besides Reese and Queen. Yeah. They got to do something about that. They were out rebounded 39 to 29 in that game, and that doesn't even speak to the offensive rebounding against Colorado State. Now, I don't know if the solution is to have those guards crashed aboard more, you know, which means they're not taken off down the court to get the ball, to move the ball down the court.

I'm curious what you think, but rebounding is a big problem right now. Yeah, you know, and we'll talk about this more in the second segment of the show because I had Kevin Willard on the show today and asked him about, you know, whether or not he's going to be the head coach at Maryland next year. But I asked him a lot about the game on Sunday. And one of the things I talked to him about and asked him about was rebounding because you're 100% right. It's been a recent problem. And it's been a recent problem for a couple of reasons that I've actually talked about. and he added a few to it. But he recognizes it's a problem.

And to your point, yeah, the guards have to rebound. Everybody's got a rebound, and it's really important Thursday night against a Florida team that's big and athletic and could really destroy Maryland with second and third opportunities if they get them. But it's interesting because he got very specific about this. you know, Michigan forces you and we, you know, sort of accommodated them by switching one through five, you know, meaning anytime you get screened for, you just switch. You know, if your man goes and screens your teammate, you just pick up who your teammate had and your teammate picks up who you had, you know, the screener. That's what switching is defensively.

And switching defensively has become so much more of a thing over the last 10 to 15, 20 years maybe. Because I'm going to tell you, Tommy, growing up, and as recently as probably, you know, late 90s, you didn't switch every screen. You switched some screens, but usually it was because they were such good screens. You couldn't go under. You couldn't fight over it. and you were forced to switch. Now a lot of teams, that's the way they play defense. That's the way they recruit.

They try to recruit five players that can play defensively any kind of player so that you can switch. Because it's really easy to switch, and it's hard to run stuff against switching defenses. Anyway, what he said to me was, Michigan really forces you to switch a lot. we switch a lot as well. And what happened in the Michigan game when they got out rebounded 47 to 18, that almost seems like it was wrong, but it's not. I don't think I've ever seen a disparity like that. He said, and I talked about this actually after the Michigan game,

a lot of that was because they were switching and big guys were ending up guarding guards on the perimeter. So your big guys were away from the rim and your little guys were closer to the rim. And that's one of the reasons Michigan was successful rebounding because they had bigs guarding, you know, going after offensive rebounds against smaller players. And then part of it, too, is that they have played a bunch of zone, more zone recently. And it's usually harder to rebound out of zone than it is at a man to man. Man to man, you're guarding somebody, you turn and you box out your man. In a zone, sometimes it can be confusing as to which guy you box out. and sometimes there's nobody to box out because there's nobody in your zone.

So they've got to fix that problem. A hundred percent a big deal for them. And I think the answer is, you know, nobody can be kind of free releasing off a shot, you know, waving their arms screaming for the outlet pass, you know, against a team. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody's got to rebound. Derek Queen, as great as he is, he's got to be a little bit more physical.

defensively, and as a rebounder, even though Tommy, he accumulates a lot of rebounding numbers. Yeah, they got to rebound better. They got to rebound better. Julian Reese has really played well, hasn't he? It's really one of those stories that I know not everybody follows it closely enough, but when you see a kid stay in the same place in this day and age for four years, and you're able to watch his as a fan, his growth. He's grown in every way imaginable. Maturity-wise, Tommy, he was, you know, a hothead, a trash talker.

He got teed up, you know, regularly. He is now so much more sort of mature and understanding in the situation and not doing those kinds of things that hurt the team. He's gone from a 55% free-throw shooter to a 73% free-throw shooter. there's nobody a year ago or two years ago that would have said, would have answered the following question with, yeah, I feel good. Julian Reese is on the free throw line in a game to get you to the Sweet 16. He's got to knock down four of four over the final two minutes of the game. Last year, two years ago, you would have said, we're sunk, we're done, we're going home.

He knocked down all four clutch free throws, hit a mid-range jumper. And what I've heard about him, you know, his sister is Angel Reese, obviously, very famous. And what I've heard is that he is really bright and an incredible kid and leader and the hardest worker on the team. And it's just, I don't know, it's college sports. You don't get a chance to see somebody grow anymore. No, you're having. I mean, he has been a lifesaver for them, double-digit rebounder and double-disset score as well in these games. You know?

And, okay, let me ask you another thing. Colorado State, they weren't a 12-seed, were they? That was a good team. And on Friday, when I watched them against Memphis, I'm like, please Memphis win this game, because they're going to be tough. They were better than a 12-seat. The way they were playing. I mean, their overall body work may have said 12 seed,

but they had won 11 games in a row coming in. Yeah. Yeah. Now let's get to the big play. Yep. The queen play. Yeah. Okay.

It's funny. Now, you know, you don't hear anyone talking about walking for years. Great point. Yeah. And all of a sudden, all of a sudden, it's like a mortal. sin. I mean, technically, you could argue whether he walked or not. You could make the case that he might have taken too many steps,

although you could make the case that he was in, he was on a basketball move when he made that, that last step. But come on. I saw guys in that game shuffle their feet numerous times with the ball. You know, where years ago, you might have been called for a walk and never gets called anymore. Not that close. You've got to be pretty blatant. You know, to have that, what's next?

Palming? Are we going to start calling palming next? Palming, traveling, three seconds. These are the things that basically just don't get called in basketball, and they haven't been for, you know, 25 years. I mean, seriously, I tweeted out that anybody that believes he traveled must be watching their first game in 30 years. because that just didn't even, it didn't occur to anybody that watches basketball

that he traveled on that play. There are plays when you're watching basketball, especially in the NBA, where you're like, man, he had to have traveled. That's not one of them. It's a gather step that they call in the NBA. That's just not a travel in basketball anymore and hasn't been for a long time.

But this time of year time, You get a lot of people that are watching basketball for the first time. This is what they watch. You know, they watch college basketball. They watch the tournament. They've got a bracket filled out. And when you go, by the way, even those people wouldn't have said he traveled until it was slowed down frame by frame. Because it wasn't really, and it didn't look like one.

Hell of a shot, though, right? Yeah, it was. It was a hell of a shot. You know, and I love that. that, you know, supposedly in the huddle, I mean, I think I read he said, you know, get me the ball, which if you're the coach, you know, that's a Jimmy Chitwood moment. I'll score, you know? Yeah.

Get me the ball. Give it to me, coach. I'll score. And I was, look, I have no horse in a race, but given that the losses that Maryland had to deal with this year and looking at another, you know, last second defeat, it right in their face. I was happy he made the shot. I was happy for Maryland. So I'm going to play some of the Kevin Willard stuff in the next segment,

and we can talk about it briefly about what he said about staying at Maryland. But I talked a lot with him about the game. And, you know, the story he told with Andy Katz right after the game was, you know, I looked around the huddle and I said, who wants to take the last shot? And Derek Queen stepped up and said, I want to take – he said, give me the MF ball. And he reiterated that this morning. And I said, and so I just asked him, and I said, if no one had stepped up and said anything, what was your plan? You know, what was the plan?

What would you have done? And he said, they've got a lot of plays. But he said, his original thought would have been to give it to Rodney Rice because he's really good moving to his left and taking step back jumpers. And he said, I thought we could have gotten him that kind of look. But he said, once Derek said he wanted it. And the way the other guys reacted to him saying it, which was there was no pushback, he said it was basically a no-brainer at that point. There was something, you know, I'm going to go into detail on this briefly, just because I think it's always interesting, and this is me, that ends up a lot of times on Mondays after football games being constructively critical or after any game, especially with the game management, the clock management stuff.

And I do think over the years I've said, look, there may have been other reasons why they did it that would make sense. But I was constructively critical on the show yesterday of them having a foul to give at the end of that, you know, on their last defensive possession and not using it. And then giving up a three, an open three, up two to one of the best shooters. and long-range shooters on the other team. So I asked him about that, and he gave an answer that was just,

this is where, you know, we think we know, but we don't know. He said, yes, we wanted to use the foul, but we didn't want to use the foul down by the baseline where they then would have had an in-bounce pass underneath their own basket. And he said the reason for that was, A, it's easier to get an open three off an inbound play underneath your own basket than it is when you're inbounding the ball on the sideline, which is 100% true. He said the other thing is this guy, this coach Medved, had like 7,000 plays from underneath his own basket.

And he goes, so we wanted to foul and give that foul on the perimeter where they would have had to inbound the ball from the sideline. but the ball immediately went to the post with Clifford backing down Maryland's defender in that situation, and that's why they didn't foul. That, like, that would have never occurred to me. It's such a, it's a totally logical reason. Obviously, I don't know much about Colorado State, and I didn't scout them to know that they're grated inbounding the ball underneath their own basket. But once he said it's easier to get open threes, it's easier to get open anything from underneath your own basket because you're working with at times really the entire floor.

And by the way, you're closer to the basket, which means it has to get defended, which opens up more opportunities for corner threes to be able to screen for a shooter. Sometimes it's the inbounder that will throw the ball out to the perimeter and then somebody will screen down. and the inbounder from out of bounds takes the screen to the corner and the ball reverses right back to him for an open three. And you don't have that same opportunity from a sideline inbounds. But I thought that was really such great insight to get. And, you know, good coaching because if they had inbound.

Now, the other part of that was they still gave up an open three playing zone defense. And, you know, that's not what they were. hoping for, they were hoping to use a foul but on the perimeter, and then the ball went inside too quickly. Anyway, I thought that was kind of interesting, and not everybody will, but I think basketball people will. No, I think that's very interesting. Oh, the other thing, too, from the first half, and I don't know if you remember the play, but their best player, Neke Clifford, Elbowed Jordan Geronimo, blatant flagrant elbow. Got to be a review there. And Robbie Hummel, who was on radio with me today, said he thinks it would have been a flagrant too and the guy would have been tossed from the game.

I think I disagree with that in a tournament game. I don't know that you're going to throw out the best player on the other team. In the regular season, I think it's very possible he would have gotten thrown out. But they didn't review it. So I asked Kevin. I said, what happened there? Did you know? And he said, I told Jordan, Geronimo, you got to lay on the floor a little bit longer.

got to really sell that. He said, I didn't see it until halftime. And he said, the referee crew came out to him, came over to him when he came out after halftime, and apologized and said, we saw it, we missed it, we apologize. And, you know, he said, look, sometimes they just miss stuff. But it is amazing in this day and age where they're over at the monitors three times, four times a game, that that was missed because it's the job of the alternate referee who's sitting at the desk to pick that up and to call the referees over to look at it. It was pretty blatant. Anybody sitting at home could see it.

Yeah, and the bottom line is that would have been a huge swing in the game if it was a flagrant one, which would have been the minimum. And if they hit him with a flagrant two, the game would have been over because that kid's a pro. I mean, he was really good in that game. He's a bit of a dirty player. too. There were a couple of other things he did. Yeah, he hooked and held on a move.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, so what do you think? You think they got a shot to beat Florida? We can talk about this on Thursday and make actual predictions, but what's your first blush? My first blush is it's going to be a difficult ask. Okay. I'll tell you this, Tommy. Maryland didn't play anywhere near their best basketball, Friday or Sunday. And if they're best, if they play their best, they'll definitely have a chance to win the game.

The rebounding thing is becoming a shit. Yeah, but if you play your best, Kevin, you want to win the game, not just have a chance to win the game. I'm saying, I think if they play their best, which we've seen a dozen times this year, I think they'll win the game. Okay. All right. Willard answered the question that I asked him today about whether or not he is staying or leaving Maryland for Villanova. You'll hear what he said next after these words from a few of our sponsors. Hey guys, whether you are a do-it-yourselfer or you're like me, you have somebody do it for you most of the time. Clogged gutters are easy to forget. They're annoying to clean and they can grow into a big problem. There's an easier way to clean. your gutters and avoid the costly damage that comes from clogged gutters. The answer is leaf filter. An investment leaf filter is an investment engineered to protect your whole home.

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Mention my name, Kevin Sheehan. Before I play for you, just the two minutes plus of Kevin Willard answering the question about whether or not he's going to be the coach at Maryland after this season. I did want to mention that Maryland women last night,

the Maryland women's basketball team last night, Tommy, played one of the all-time epic women's NCAA tournament games. They beat Alabama in double overtime, 11-108. It's the second highest scoring game in NCAA tournament history. Wow. I actually turned the game on when it was in the third quarter. They were down 17.

Maryland was, so it was an incredible comeback that they had in the game. I had Brenda Freeze, by the way, on the radio show today. She's great, always as a guest. If you want to listen to that, you can just go to the team 980.com. And it was just an incredible game. But the other part of the game, in addition to it being one of the greatest NCAA tournament or more exciting, you know, high-scoring NCAA tournament games of all time, is that a player for Alabama, her name is Sarah Ashley Barker.

She scored 45 points in the game. And I went and looked up the all-time scoring mark. There are only two performances in the history of the women's tournament that were better. Some woman I've never heard of scored 50, and Cheryl Swoop scored 47. in a game. So Sarah Ashley Barker, not only did she go for 45 in the game, Tommy, she was 17 of 25 from the field. You know, she didn't need 35 shots, and she only made four threes. She got fouled at the end of the first overtime shooting a three and made all three free throws. She also had 11 turnovers. I said, I asked Brenda today, I said, is it ridiculous to say,

this person went for 45 points, but she had 11 turnovers. Like, yeah. But she said, look, those are, you know, 11 possessions that they didn't score and we had a chance to score on the other end, which is, it's a lot of turnovers for one player, but she dominated, you know, the basketball game. But the other part of this, this is the first time since Brenda's been at Maryland. This is her 23rd year where both the men and the women have been in the sports. in the Sweet 16 at the same time.

I would have not guessed that. I would have thought that it would have happened a couple of times. But she got here, remember, the year after they won the national championship. And they went to the Sweet 16, the men did that year, but then it would be another 13 years before they went back. Marilyn's been absent from the second weekend of the tournament. It's not her fault that it hasn't happened. she's been to 12 Sweet 16s, eight Elite 8s. She's a Hall of Fame coach, right?

I don't know anything about when it's college basketball, but she's got to be a Hall of Fame coach. She's got a Hall of Fame resume, that's for sure. Yeah. All right. So I had Kevin Willard on the show today. They're out in San Francisco getting ready for the Sweet 16 game. And for those of you not familiar with the story,

lots of rumors swirling about Kevin Willard to Villanoe. Villanova fired Kyle Neptune, who was the guy that replaced Jay Wright. They have a coaching vacancy. Kevin Willard's name has been mentioned as a top candidate for the Villanova job. So he was asked about it last week. We played those comments on the podcast. Friday, we had Jeff Irman on the show to talk about his comments where, you know, like I said on Friday's show, he went, as the kids say, gangster and decided to show the athletic director the door.

not let it hit them on the way out. And these are things that we've talked about here and there over the years. Maryland's a big time basketball program, but within the university, Kevin's had some of the same issues that Mark Turgeon had, which is not the same level of resources that maybe some of the true high-end basketball programs have. And there's been frustration now with multiple athletic directors over the last three coaches. Look, Gary complained about Debbie, but they weren't in the Big Ten at that point, and the Big Ten comes with a lot more opportunity in terms of revenue because of football, obviously. Anyway, the rumors about Villanova really have heated up in the last 24 to 48 hours. And there's been a lot of discussion from people in the know and reporting that Kevin is seriously considering going to Villanova.

So I asked him about it, and you'll hear that right now. All right, you know, I've got to ask you this. Are you staying at Maryland or going? Yeah. You know what? I've had over the last week, I know I've said some things that have raised people's eyes, but, you know, Maryland's been great. We're in a perfect shape.

I missed a radio show today, and everybody thinks, you know, I miss the radio show today because I overslept. I'm on West Coast time now. Everything that my concerns have been about the job. And that was my whole point in my press conference. And, you know, maybe my jersey came out of me, not in the greatest way, was, you know, I want to make this program the best. And I think when you have an opportunity to do it, you have to take advantage of the opportunity, Kevin. And, you know, obviously losing the athletic director has been a little bit of a, I wouldn't say, it's been a little hard to be honest with you just because, you know, I wasn't expecting Damon to leave and go to SMU.

but I've been working with Brian Oman and everyone in the athletic department, and they've been great, and they understood my concerns and what I want. And again, I don't want monumental things. I just want this program to be the best they can be. I think I'm not asking for that much. So are you staying? As of right now, I'm staying, yes. As of right now, but are you going to get the things that,

are you comfortable right now saying that you're going to get the things you need, and you are going to be at Maryland as the head coach next year and beyond. Absolutely. I mean, and it's, you know, Brian Olman has been phenomenal. You know, he's actually the first guy that's come up to me. One of my issues is I just didn't have a great deal. Tell everybody who Brian is. Brian's a, I think Brian, it's the CEO.

I'm not sure what his title is. He's in the athletic department, and he's way up there. There's a lot of people up there. Okay, just so everybody knows. Yeah. But he's been great. He's the first guy actually sat down with me, talked to me, and really found out what my concerns and what I really wanted, you know, because it's not a contractual thing for me. It's more of a program thing for me.

And Brian and I are on the same page. He has been awesome. He has put a lot of what I've felt over the last three years about the program. I think he's finally starting to understand where I want this program to go. And that's all it matters to me. I want this, you know, what Lefty did, what Gary did, what Mark did, what I want to try to do is elevate this program to the best. It's what our fans want. It's what my donors want.

They talk about it all the time. It's what I want. It's what my expectations are. And when you're at a place like Maryland, there's just certain things that need to be done to be at the top of college basketball. And I can tell you that I don't think, I don't know if Brian's trying to get to. the AD job, but Brian has been phenomenal. So you heard in the follow-up, he said, as of right now, I'm staying, everything that my concerns have been about, the job, you know, the, was the whole point of the press conference,

and then, you know, I said, you know, have you gotten everything? You heard what he said, look, my feeling the last week after Thursday was, I think he'll end up staying at Maryland. really felt very strongly over the weekend based on talking to people, and I think I expressed that on yesterday's show, that he would ultimately stay, that he would get a lot of the things that he's looking for and ultimately stay. And then yesterday afternoon and last night and even early this morning came, and there were a lot of people kind of in the know talking about and reporting, not necessarily reporting, but indicating, you know, guys like Jeff Herman, that he, now is more likely than not to leave and go to Villanova.

It stinks that this is happening right now. But I'll ask you first, what did you hear? What do you think? Well, it's funny. It's interesting because he basically told Maryland who they should hire as their next athletic director. Yeah, with Brian Olman. Yeah. Right.

You know, he did the same thing when he left Seaton Hall, which caused a lot big ruckus. I mean, it is, in one of his going away press conferences, he endorsed Shaheen Holloway. As a coach, not as an A.D., yeah. As a coach. Yeah. But which pissed off the people at Seaton Hall because they would have liked to have hired the coach that they wanted. So he had this issue at Seaton Hall. I don't think he's staying.

You have much more indication about this than I do. But it sounds like that conversation. I don't think he would go public with his endorsement of the athletic director if he was staying, because that's bad form. Well, I think it's a guy that he would be comfortable with as athletic director. And, you know, it's also potentially, you know, know, an easy out to say, I asked for these things and the school president didn't provide them to me, including my recommendation for an AD. Guys, I tried, it just didn't work out.

Now, I know what the reaction from a lot of you was to the conversation this morning, and a lot of you really felt like he basically said he was staying. He didn't say that. He said, as of right now, I'm staying. My belief right now, as we're recording this, is it's a very fluid situation. It is definitely a possibility he stays, but with no AD, with a school president who I'm not going to say what I've heard because I don't know it for fact. But maybe not as engaged as he should be with the wants of the, the, the wants of the, the basketball fan base, and I believe that the wants of the basketball fan base right now is for Kevin Willard to stay. Now, I think if they had lost to Colorado State, it might be different. I really want him to stay. I think he's a good fit for Maryland. I really do. I think he's a good

coach. I thought Mark was a good coach, and it's not because I'm a Maryland guy. I thought he was a good coach. And a lot of other people in the business not only thought, but still think he's a good coach because he's been helping a lot of coaches since he's been at a coaching. I think Kevin's a good coach. And I think his personality fit is really good for the school and really good for the market. Because, you know, he's a Jersey guy. He is a South Jersey guy. And that's what Gary was. and it just was a good mix, especially with the older portion of the fan base. I don't want him to go.

I don't know if he will or won't. I don't think that what he said to me was inaccurate or untruthful. I just think the situation is fluid. And so what he told me in the moment, I think he was being sincere about. But if he doesn't get, you know, what he wants in terms of the share of revenue to be able to pay players,

the commitment to the basketball, program an AD or an associate AD that's dedicated to basketball that a lot of schools have, then I think Villanova's a possibility. The other thing is I don't even know if he's Villanova's top choice, but I have a feeling he might be. I had John fan to Tommy on the show. I love John. He's covered college basketball forever, the Big East in particular, right before Kevin came

on, and John predicted that Kevin stays at Maryland based on, you know, the people that he's talked to. We'll see. I'll tell you this, man, if he leaves, it's not pretty. There isn't an obvious. Because people in coaching will view the Maryland situation as not a great situation. You know, people knew this when Mark left to a certain degree, that it was not the, I'll be honest. It wasn't the job that I purported it to be.

Like I always felt like forget about where Maryland's ranked as a program. It's a great job. You're in the Big Ten. You got an arena. You got a fan base. You got tradition. You got a fertile recruiting, you know, situation in the DMV. But there's a lot of things inside the business that coaches would point to and say, yeah, but their NIL money isn't great.

The, you know, administration hasn't been great. And so, yeah. I mean, at this point, if he were to leave, I have no idea who they'd hire. I mean, I don't think, I love Dwayne Simpkins in the job he's done at AU. I think the Maryland job is two jobs away from the AU job. I think Tony Skinn's done a great job at George Mason. I think Maryland's two jobs away from the Mason job. Now, I may be living in a, you know, in 10 years ago, college hoops.

Tony Skinn was on Kevin's staff the first year he got here, and he knows the Maryland program. I don't know. To me, Skin at Mason is less of a leap going to Maryland than A.U. to Maryland. And by the way, the first head coaching job that Dwayne Simpkins has had, even though he is an alum. I mean, but the pickings are slim right now out there,

which is one of the issues Villanova's having. So anyway, I don't know what'll happen at this point. I'd still lean he stays. You can't hire Sean Miller, try to hire Sean Miller again. But he just had hired. God, he's left Xavier twice. Incredible. I just hope he stays.

But I think this is a situation that is literally changing, you know, every few hours. And somebody out at that school needs to step up and say, This is important to us. Basketball is really important, and therefore keeping Kevin Willard is really important. So let's do what we need to do to keep them. I hope that happens. I do. I want you to talk about George Foreman.

We will do that after these words from a few of our sponsors. All right, Tommy, tell us about Shelley's. Well, I can tell you where I'm going to be watching the Maryland game Thursday night, at Shelley's back room at 1331 F Street, Northwest, in the distance. Nice. I know this because Thursday is opening day, and that's Park. And once the Phillies game is over, I'll head from the ballpark to Shelly's and enjoy. Look, the guy who runs the place, Tony, the head bartender, big Maryland alum, great place to watch Maryland basketball, be filled with Maryland fans.

And I'm really looking forward to it. That's awesome. Because Shelly's is such a great, great atmosphere. You know, there'll be cigars. They'll be drinking my Sierra Nevada that I like so much. I'll be eating my favorite chicken tenders. And I'll be around all these Maryland fans that'll be going crazy in that game. If you want to find out more about a great place to watch Maryland basketball or any sporting event,

go to shelley's backroom.com. All right. I know that you wanted to talk about George Foreman, who passed away over the weekend. The floor is yours. Well, first of all, I wrote a column about George. You can find it on my social media account or go to Washington Times.com, click on sports. I know Kevin's read it because I emailed him a copy of it. Of course I did.

And I know he's going to retweet it when we're done with the show here. Of course I will. So all of you can have a chance. Look, I knew George. One of the gifts I was given in this job, I had numerous encounters with George, including in 2004, watching him perform Sunday services at the small little church he had in Houston. I was there for the All-Star game and went the day before on a Sunday and went to George Foreman's church.

I stayed for the service. I hung out after it. We talked for like an hour about different things. I've interviewed him on the phone. He was a guest on my podcast, Cigars and Curveballs. George Foreman, it's not only one of the greatest heavyweights in the history of the game. he's one of the greatest American figures

in sports of our lifetime. He really is. I mean, the different lives he led, he was a tough street kid from Houston, Olympic hero, you know, world champion, feared

evil world champion, becomes a minister and has a second act where he's a totally transformed person. Right. I mean, people don't really know how feared and dislike George Foreman was when he was champion the first time around. And he was so beloved this last time, and I had the pleasure of being in the ring, ring sign when he knocked out Michael Moore, which is the single greatest sporting moment I've ever covered in my life.

And numerous boxing writers have said the same thing, unsolicited, that I have. It's the loudest moment I've ever experienced at a sporting event. You have talked about that fight for as long as I have known you. Yeah, it was like, and it was for nine rounds, it was a snooze. Moore was killing him. You know, he was well ahead on the scorecards. George was just sizing him up, and he was a brilliant fighter, and such a great human being, and I'm going to miss him.

You know, when Tom Brady won the Super Bowl, a few years ago, I think at the age of 45, I called George up, but I did a calm about it. You know, figuring that he could relate to it. He was a great American original. He will be missed. When you would call him, was it always easy? Would he always just say, of course, Tommy, whatever you need? Always easy.

Always easy. One time he called the house returning a call from mine, and one of my kids answered the phone. And they still talk about that to this day. That, you know, they say, who is this? And they said, it's George Foreman. So, no, George was friendly by nature. You know, I like to say friendly by nature, friendly by transform nature, because in his previous encounter, he was not friendly by nature.

But was it because he was just shy and unsure of himself, given his background, et cetera, or was he trying to portray, you know, the next sunny listing? That's exactly what he was doing. He talks about it. I have a quote in my column. He said, I thought, you know, I looked up the sunny list, and I thought that's what you had to be to be heavyweight champion. And I wound up being sunny listing more than sunny listing was, he said. You know?

So I think he was very unsure of himself being in the spotlight like he was. And the second time around, he was very comfortable with himself and very comfortable in the spotlight. And he was in the spotlight. He became one of the greatest television pitchmen in the history of advertising. What do you think he was worth when he passed away? What's he worth? I think I read well over between $400,400 million. You wrote in the column, and it was a reminder to me that he, the Foreman Grill,

he essentially sold for like $140 million, I think it was. Yeah, because the company, it was costing a company too much. to pay him per unit. Right. It was so successful. So they made a deal with him just to basically give write him a check and then go on selling George Foreman Grills without having to pay him per unit. God.

Did you ever own a George Foreman Grill? Yes, I did. I never did. And they were very, very good. They were very, very good. I was with a bunch of... I think, you know what? Yeah.

Michael Scott owned the George Forman Grill. Yes, he did. He burned his foot on it. You know, it's too bad because the bacon smells so good in the morning. But I was with a bunch of guys over the weekend, Saturday, playing golf, and somebody said, how many of us own George Foreman Grills? I was the only person in the group that had never owned a George Foreman Grill. Never owned one.

I was actually really surprised at that. I knew how well and how successful it was. Wow. Yeah. You'll be missed. I'll miss him. And the world was better off with George Foreman. Was he sick?

I'm curious. Was it... I don't know. Yeah. You know, I don't know. I mean, there's a video of him like a year ago punching the heavy bag in a gym. And still putting a hurting on that heavy bag.

Right. You know, at 75. Jesus. How many of his kids, were any of them, athletes, were any of them boxers? I don't know. His daughter became a boxer.

Oh, yeah, I remember that. But of the four or five George's... I don't know about the boy. Yeah, because five of them were named George, right? Yeah, you know, I met some of them because they were on the altar when he was doing Sunday services helping him with

church. His family was all part of it. You know, and there was about 35 people. This is like, he was like, He's unbelievably famous. He's on this 10-building church on the side street somewhere, and there's about 35, 40 people in the congregation who basically come to, you know, pray with George and tell him their troubles, and he would listen to him. He told me that that kept him grounded when he would go back and do the Sunday services, and he tried to do it almost every Sunday.

You know, one of the things you introduced me to, I mean, you've talked about that Michael Moore fight at 45 years old forever is the best sporting event you've ever been to. But Foreman Lyle in the mid-70s is like, for those of you that have watched Hearns and Hagler in three of the most action-packed rounds in the history of boxing, this was a fight which, what was it, it was five rounds, some of the most brutal five rounds of boxing ever when Foreman and Lyle fought in 76. That is a fight which is absolutely worth the 25 minutes of real time and going back and watching it on YouTube. Incredible. Foreman knocked him out and Foreman, he'd gotten knocked down.

It was incredible. And of course, Down goes Frazier is certainly one of the all-time great CoSell calls, and that was Foreman knocking Frazier out in the first time. This is Howard CoSell's birthday, too, March 25th. Really? Aretha Franklin and Elton John as well. Pretty good company.

Yes, they are in pretty good company. I think George Harrison has my birthday. I think, or maybe it's the day after. All right. Sorry for George Foreman leaving the earth because 76, like you said, year ago he was hitting the heavy bag. It's too bad. Too young, but what an all-time character and sportsman he turned out to be.

You got anything else? I got nothing else for you, both. Okay, you did a good job today. Thursday we'll talk about the Nats. We'll predict the Maryland, Florida game and look at the Sweet 16 games. Have a happy birthday. Have fun tonight. And, you know, you get three balls, Tommy.

You can knock down 10 pins and three balls. You can do it. Now, it's more important to knock down 10 on your first or second ball, because that's either a strike or a spare. If you knock it down on the third ball, it's just a 10 count with no carryover. You need me to keep score? I'm just going to try to keep it out of the gutter. No cutter balls.

Yeah, put up the rails for Tommy Winnie Bowls. All right, I'll talk to you Thursday, thanks. Okay. Back tomorrow, everybody.