Kevin Willard has no regrets over leaving Maryland to take Villanova job

Eye On College Basketball

CBS Sports, College Basketball, Basketball, March Madness, NCAA Tournament, NBA Draft

Basketball, Sports

4.8 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 21 October 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

New Villanova coach Kevin Willard joins Matt Norlander at Big East Media Days. (0:15) Settling in at Villanova (1:05) Any regrets on how things went down at Maryland (4:20) Being in the Big East (7:25) Roster talk Theme song: "Timothy Leary," written, performed and courtesy of Guster Eye on College Basketball is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Follow our team: @EyeonCBBPodcast @GaryParrishCBS @MattNorlander @Kyle_Boone @DavidWCobb @NataTheScribe Visit the ⁠betting arena on CBSSports.com⁠ for all the latest in ⁠sportsbook reviews⁠ and ⁠sportsbook promos⁠ for ⁠betting on college basketball⁠. You can listen to us on your smart speakers! Simply say, "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Eye on College Basketball podcast," or "Hey, Google, play the latest episode of the Eye on College Basketball podcast." Email the show for any reason whatsoever: [email protected] Visit Eye on College Basketball's YouTube channel: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeFb_xyBgOekQPZYC7Ijilw⁠ For more college hoops coverage, visit ⁠https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/⁠ To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit ⁠https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/⁠ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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0:28.6	18 plus.
0:29.6	Gambleaware.org. Billanova coach Kevin Willer joins us on the Ion College basketball podcast.
0:48.9	It's great to see you.
0:50.1	Good to be here.
0:50.6	How are we doing?
0:52.7	How are we feeling heading into a season? New job, new digs. Are you settled in with a house? Can you like make it to your morning routine to get your coffee with your eyes closed when you're driving now? What's life? No, I mean, it's, I'm still living on campus. So it's okay. The commute's great. 30 seconds right to the office. Okay. Is this a long-term situation? No, no, this is hopefully get out of there pretty soon. But no, everything's, everything's been great. Kind of settled in, nice, got the roster set. Um, love my team and, you know, I'm really enjoying being of Illinois. Uh, well, that's rare to talk to a coach in October who says he loves his team. So I'm glad you're really cutting against the grain there. No, I do. I, you know, we have a, I have a great group of guys that work hard. They're fun to be around. They enjoy playing the style we're trying to play. So, like, I got no complaints right now. I mean, we also haven't played a game. I know, exactly, exactly. Ask me in November. Exactly. Okay, let's just rewind the clock real quick. You know, you come to Media Day. That's going to be part of it. Then we'll look ahead here. I'm looking forward to next year's Media Day. I understand this year's, yeah. I got to get through this one before you get to the next one.
2:06.4	Any regrets on how the whole thing went down?
2:07.3	No, none at all. Okay, how you handled it?
2:09.5	No, I mean, widely criticized by some.
2:12.3	And I get it.
2:14.3	But I kind of laugh at everybody just for the fact that no one really understood why I was doing it.
	...

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