During a media timeout in the first half of Utah State’s eventual 86-76 victory over Villanova, TNT’s broadcast team pulled aside Wildcats head coach Kevin Willard to get an update from him on the game.
Sideline reporter Lauren Shehadi asked Willard about the at-the-time 16 points in the paint the Aggies had scored and the first-year Villanova coach gave a terse response.
“I’m gonna fire my staff,” Willard said. “We’ve given up eight points on underneath out-of-bounds defense. The only thing I’m gonna do is fire them and get a new staff.”
“I’m gonna fire my staff. Yeah, I am … The only thing I’m gonna do is fire them and get a new staff.” – Villanova coach Kevin Willard to @LaurenShehadi 🤣 pic.twitter.com/6PdSBKa72z
— CBS Sports College Basketball 🏀 (@CBSSportsCBB) March 20, 2026
Willard repeated that sentiment after the game when asked about the team’s struggles on those plays. Though when a follow-up about those comments and the TV interview, which had gone viral on social media and drawn widespread criticism, Willard said it was meant as a joke.
“Welcome to my life. It (was) a joke,” Willard said.
Jokes about the employment status of Villanova’s assistants aside, Willard had reason to be unhappy about his team’s paint defense, especially when it came on out-of-bounds sets. The Aggies scored several easy in the opening minutes just using inbounds set. And it stared fromUSU’s second offensive possession of the game.
On said second Aggie possession, point guard Drake Allen inbounded the ball, initially appearing to look for MJ Collins coming off a pair of high post screens from Adlan Elamin and Zach Keller. But when three Villanova defenders converged on Collins, Keller cut to the basket, took the pass from Allen and drew a foul. He then hit both free throws.
Only a few minutes later, while the TV commentary — featuring Kevin Harlan, Robbie Hummel and Stan Van Gundy — were praising Willard for being the winningest first-year coach in Villanova history, Collins outran his defender for an easy pass from Allen for another layup.
Capping off the early struggles on these plays was a nifty set that led to a Kolby King layup. He set a screen at the elbow for Mason Falslev, but then just turned around in a suddenly empty lane and took the pass for yet another easy lay-in.
It got to the point that the color commentators, Hummel and Gundy, were repeatedly bringing up the subject throughout the first half.
“Utah State has gotten a lot of people on under out-of-bounds this year,” Hummel remarked after one of those early scores.
“I’m telling you, Jerrod Calhoun…he is a great X and O coach,” Van Gundy said as a follow-up to Hummel. “His offensive playbook is incredible.”
On one occasion, where the Aggies were again inbounding the ball on the baseline but had to lob it to the perimeter, at which point Van Gundy somewhat jokingly praised the Villanova defense, saying “look at this, (Villanova) made the ball come in outside on a baseline out of bounds.” And when Allen missed a 3-pointer shortly after, Hummel chimed in “the elusive stop on the under out-of-bounds.”
All of those plays, and plenty more half court and other sets throughout the game, showed the Aggies’ ability to manipulate the defense and create openings for all of its players. Two of those plays specifically took advantage of the attention given by the defense to Falslev and Collins. That allowed USU to get all of its players involved. So while Collins and Falslev did combine for 42 points, the team got 44 from the rest of its players, including 16 bench points (Villanova had just three).
