{"id":131675,"date":"2025-03-30T15:23:16","date_gmt":"2025-03-30T19:23:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=131675"},"modified":"2025-03-30T15:23:16","modified_gmt":"2025-03-30T19:23:16","slug":"top-candidates-for-maryland-head-coach-opening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/03\/30\/top-candidates-for-maryland-head-coach-opening\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Candidates for Maryland Head Coach Opening"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a two-week saga, Kevin Willard<\/a> has finally announced that he is leaving Maryland in favor of Villanova. This leaves an opening for what is considered by many to be one of the more desirable jobs in college basketball. However, the Terps are late to enter the coaching carousel due to the team’s run to the Sweet 16. Despite this, there are still many strong candidates available to be the next Maryland head coach. The University is expected to move quickly as they need to sign a coach while the transfer portal is still active in order to reload for next season.<\/p>\n

Top Candidates for Maryland Head Coach Opening<\/h2>\n

Buzz Williams<\/h3>\n

The name that appears to come up most often is Buzz Williams from Texas A&M. Williams has been in College Station for five seasons, which is historically around when he starts to look for a new job. He stayed at Marquette for 6 years, Virginia Tech for 5, and now 5 at Texas A&M.<\/p>\n

This hire would be great for Maryland, especially in the short term. He is familiar with recruiting the area due to his time with the Hokies and is already well-connected in college basketball, meaning he can recruit the transfer portal. However, there are questions about the ceiling of the program under him. He has not made a Sweet 16 with A&M, nor has he won the conference. But he is a safe option and is a proven commodity at the power conference level.<\/p>\n

Tony Skinn<\/h3>\n

The next Maryland head coach may not even need to move, should the University go with Tony Skinn. Currently the head coach at George Mason,\u00a0 Skinn has a ton of experience with the DMV. He is from Takoma Park, MD, played at George Mason, was an assistant at Maryland, and as previously mentioned, is currently the coach at George Mason. His familiarity with the area and program is seen as a huge positive for Maryland fans, boosters, and administration.<\/p>\n

The main concern with Skinn is experience. He only has two years of head coaching experience, but both have been successful. He has a 47-21 record over the past two seasons and split the A-10 regular season championship with VCU this year. If the search committee is willing to overlook this, they will be getting a young coach who will likely be willing to stay in College Park for a very long time.<\/p>\n

Luke Murray<\/h3>\n

A bit of a wild card, Luke Murray<\/a> is a name being floated around for the position. Last off-season, Murray was mentioned as a candidate for a few openings<\/a> and it is no different this year. He is seen as an offensive genius. During his 4 years at UConn, the Huskies have an average Kenpom offensive ranking of 10th in the country. The obvious knock on him is that he has no head coaching experience. However, he was an assistant at Towson University, which is about 45 minutes from College Park. This gives him some connections to the area. It doesn’t seem likely, but if the school wants to take a gamble, we could see Murray as the next Maryland head coach.<\/p>\n

Other Names Being Mentioned<\/h3>\n

Like every opening, a ton of names have been mentioned in the Maryland head coach search. Chris Collins<\/a> from Northwestern is a name that has a little buzz. He was discussed in the Villanova job opening and it appears he will be discussed at Maryland. Chris Beard from Ole Miss has been mentioned. He is a tremendous coach but comes with a ton of baggage. Duane Simpkins from American University is a final name that is being discussed. Simpkins is a former Maryland player and made the NCAA Tournament at AU this year. But his lack of experience appears to be holding him back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After a two-week saga, Kevin Willard has finally announced that he is leaving Maryland in favor of Villanova. This leaves an opening for what is considered by many to be one of the more desirable jobs in college basketball. However, the Terps are late to enter the coaching carousel due to the team’s run to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4878,"featured_media":131684,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[773,1608,2,3],"tags":[2744,852,1744,860],"class_list":["post-131675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-basketball","category-featured","category-news","tag-george-mason-patriots","tag-maryland-terrapins","tag-uconn-huskies","tag-villanova-wildcats"],"modified_by":"Andy Grutkowski","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4878"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131675"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131685,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131675\/revisions\/131685"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}