Everything Kevin Willard, players said after buzzer-beating NCAA Tournament win vs. Colorado State

Ahmed Ghafir
Mar 23
8 min read

Willard’s opening statement

“Yeah, extremely proud of this group of guys for battling through. Colorado State is really good. Niko does an unbelievable job and I thought it was a great game. Julian Reese gets a thousand rebounds in this game comes up probably with the biggest rebound of his career and then makes his free throws. So give Colorado State a lot of credit. They're an excellent basketball team. I feel bad that they had to go that way, but I really felt like maybe we were due eventually for one of those to go for us.”

Queen on his thoughts ahead of game-winning shot

“That I got to get fouled or go out there and make a shot.”

Queen on how he blocked out the noise of the game-winner

“First, that was my first game-winner and when Coach drew up the play, my teammates trusted me, he trusted me. I was a little bit, like, nervous, but I knew we were due for one and I had to make this.”

Reese on his reaction to Queen’s game-winner

“Yeah, we have all confidence in him. We knew where the ball was going to. We had to get the ball in his hands. He had the mismatch, so I feel like he just took advantage and doing the things that he usually doing. I was there for a rebound if it would have came off and you all saw what happened.”

Reese on his two free-throws to put Maryland ahead two

“Yeah, when I was at the line, I was really just excited because this is really what I work for in the off-season. That's literally all I was thinking, like, the off-season work, it's the same shot, and I was literally -- before we went in the huddle, when they were reviewing it, we were, like, let's just worry about defense right now. I got these shots. Let's just worry about defense. So I really wasn't thinking too much about the shot making it. I was really thinking about defense, and I was extremely confident going into the line.”

Reese on whether his sister texted him, what makes them good rebounders

“No, I haven't looked at my messages yet. I know she's probably going crazy on my phone still right now. But as far as the rebounding that runs in the family, I think it's just a heart thing. We just play the game with so much intensity and just wear our feelings on our sleeve and try to play our hardest, and I just really didn't want that to be our last game, so I just really wanted to play real hard.”

On whether Queen came to Maryland for moments like that

“Yeah, of course. I mean, first of all, I just want to put out for Baltimore. A lot of people don't really make it out of Baltimore, and then I just wanted to come here and make a change. And hopefully I did make a change, so Coach Willard can keep getting a lot of local kids.”

Rice on halftime adjustments

“Yeah, even though I missed shots, I'm still going to shoot the ball, still going to be myself, still going to be aggressive no matter what. I'm sure everybody knows that. They're giggling next to me. Yeah, I'm going to stay in attack mode all game.”

“Yeah, as a team, I think we were in our own heads on the offensive end in the first half, and then at halftime Coach was telling us that defense dictates offense. We got to get deflections and just play defense, lock up.”

On what makes Willard a coach to want to play for

Queen: “First, he did pay us the money (laughing). And so we got to listen to him. And we all trust him because he's, like, a player coach. And then he want nothing but the best for us and he just coaches hard. He talks to us other than basketball. He's just always there and just want us to win.”

Reese: “Yeah, I feel like as a player, you got to put that trust in your coach. It's part of being a team. And as a leader, I got to listen to him and we got to take something from each other and just that's what we got to do for to us win. I feel like every good team has that that listens their team leader and everybody works together just to do that.”

Rice: “both on and off the court we love Coach Willard, man. So I mean, that trust is there, like the guys were saying, and, yeah, that goes into everything else.”

Rice on playing with Derik Queen

“I think we need that. I think while we're playing, we get -- well, especially me. I'll speak for myself. But I get so locked into the game, I need to relax a little bit. Having him in the locker room, I'm not so tense. So yeah, I appreciate that from him.”

Willard on being on the right side of game-ending plays

“It feels really good, to be honest with you, because we battled back, Ju making the free throws. These guys have bounced back every time we've had a buzzer-beater. And really the gut punch was Michigan State. These guys have shown such character in how they have bounced back. That's all I told 'em in the huddle. I said, Guys, for the first time we have time left. It's our time to kind of make our moment happen. We haven't had that chance, and so I was really just – they just bounced back. They're a great group. They do listen. And I'm just happy for them. I mean, this is a moment that they will remember for the rest of their lives. I'm still going to be coaching for hopefully 10 or 12 more years, but for these guys, Ju's a senior, DQ is going to the pros, Rodney's going to be around with me for a while, but it's a great experience for 'em.”

Willard on the huddle before the game-winning play

“Yeah, I run the same play at the end of the game now, ever since Isaiah Whitehead made a buzzer-beater against Villanova. I'm not mentioning that for -- it's not -- y'all got to stop that shit. It's not -- that's not, like, a pseudo thing. I ran that for Isaiah Whitehead and we ran it twice this year for Derik and he scored. And I asked the guys, I said, Who wants the ball? Because sometimes you can draw something up for a guy that maybe doesn't want the basketball, and his exact words, I want the M-F ball. So once he said that, it was a pretty simple decision. And I could see everyone's body language kind of perk up a little bit because he was so confident in the fact that he wanted the basketball. So it was just a simple zipper, give him the basketball and let him go to work.”

Willard on whether Derik Queen wanted to ball on the last play

“He was the first one and he was very enthusiastic about wanting the basketball. And again, I know he's only a freshman, I know this is a big stage, but Rodney's never been in the NCAA Tournament, Ja'Kobi's never been in the NCAA Tournament. Hard to run a play at the end of the game for a six-eleven center like Ju, so when he said he wanted the basketball, it just made it pretty simple.”

Willard on how to explain the win in a game Colorado State played well

“No, Colorado State's good, man. I watched film -- we watched film after Grand Canyon, and I said, This might be the best team we've played all year offensively. They pass the ball, they screen well. Niko runs stuff -- he's got eight trillion plays. So this is just a great win for our guys.”

Willard on his first Sweet 16 appearance

“Yeah, I mean, it's nice. I'm not going to lie. I would much rather be coaching than being back home. I wish my first weekend would have been at Seton Hall, to be honest with you. Seton Hall was really good to me and I thought we had some chances. It's hard, to be honest with you. I know it's always been on my back and it's always been a stigma, but I knew I had confidence in myself that eventually if you keep getting to this tournament, which my teams keep getting to this tournament, that I was eventually going to knock the door down. I wish I would have done it at Seton Hall, to be honest with you, first. It's a place I loved and still love and they were so good to me. I wish I would have been able to do it there. But I'm glad that -- this is only our second Sweet 16 in 23 years here, so I'm just as happy that it happened at Maryland.”

Willard on the halftime message

“Yeah, I've learned this team. They don't react well to me being negative or me being angry. Not that I get angry any more, but I just reminded everybody that as bad as we played offensively, we were only down seven. We should have been down probably 13 or 14 points as bad as we played offensively. Just reminded them that let's go back to doing what we've been doing. The nerves are real. Playing in your second round for these guys, a lot of these guys the nerves are real, and they want to perform at a high level. The game has changed. They play well and next thing you know their NIL dollars go up. The transfer portal opens up, I think, that opens tomorrow. Brilliant move by the NCAA. So there's so many different stresses, plus they want to win, they want to play well. Their families are here. So for me, I just try to give them a stress-free zone in the locker room. The locker room is their safe spot, the huddle is their safe spot. They know they're going to come over and not get yelled at, they know that they will get encouraged. It's same thing at halftime. We watched film at halftime and we watched our defense, and everybody kind of just looked around at each other and was like, all right, that's not what we're about. So pretty much just being a dad, pretty much to just letting these guys know it's okay, we're going to play better.”

Willard on Derik Queen

“Yeah, I mean, I've talked about Derik at length. He is, his positivity and his joyfulness for life, his mom has the same energy. He just has such a great energy about him that he, when you're around him you're going to smile, you're going to laugh, you're going to hug him. His teammates are the same way. He just has, not too many people in this world have positive energy any more and he's so fun to be around because he's always positive. So when he said that he wanted the ball and the way he said it, I knew something good was going to happen because good things happen to great people and he is a great, great person.”

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