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Kevin Willard calls out officiating in Maryland’s NCAA Tournament loss to Alabama
By Andrew Olson
Published:
Maryland’s 2022-23 season came to a close Saturday night as the No. 8 seed Terrapins fell to No. 1 overall seed Alabama 73-51 in Birmingham. Coach Kevin Willard felt the Terps were hurt by foul calls on Julian Reese.
Reese picked up his second foul at the 17:03 mark of the first half.
“The second foul call was mysterious and even the third one,” Willard said in his postgame press conference. “I played him with two fouls all year. You know, you can’t call that second foul. Not in an NCAA Tournament game. That’s just my feeling on it.
“I thought it was a horrible call and it changed the outcome of the game. I can elaborate a lot on but I will probably get in a lot of trouble. I can go in that much trouble or do you want me going in this much trouble? The second call was a terrible foul call. You can’t take our best player out of the game when the game was as physical as it was. It was a horrible call.”
Maryland had planned to depend on Reese against the Crimson Tide.
“It changed our whole game plan,” Willard said of Reese’s foul trouble. “We were going to pound it inside, pound it inside. That’s what we have been doing for the last two months of the season. We played through Julian. We played at the high post through Julian. We played down low through Julian. He draws fouls. He draws double teams.
“So he plays 21 minutes and he’s minus 4. So that just tells you how valuable he was to this game. So, you know, I will continue to play him with two fouls because I trust him. But even the third foul was like, you know, I was thinking, you got to be looking at him and put him on the bench. That’s how I feel.”
Reese would foul out with 2:24 to go in the game. He had 14 points on 6-of-10 shooting from the floor, going 2-of-5 at the line and grabbing 2 rebounds.
Reese played just 4 minutes in the first half. Maryland got off to a 9-2 start but trailed Alabama 28-23 at the half. The Crimson Tide dominated the second half 45-28 to get a 22-point victory.
A former Florida beat reporter, Andrew writes for the Saturday Tradition News Desk.