Villanova HC Kevin Willard makes himself the story in opening-round loss to Utah State

The thing about this is everybody knew he was joking. At least we should probably assume he was joking, because no sane coach would ever threaten to seriously fire their coaching staff in the middle of a game or immediately after a game. That would be unheard of. That sort of thing just does not happen outside of a George Steinbrenner-Billy Martin partnership. 

But even if it's a joke, it still missed the mark given the context of the entire situation.

This is the NCAA Tournament. It is your first tournament game as the head coach of a prominent program whose recent standard has been competing for championships. It is a game where a mid-major is outplaying you and out-working you. Instead of taking ownership of that, instead of taking accountability for that, he decides to make a joke that makes his staff the subject of it, where the punch line is them being thrown under the bus.

Just answer the question with an honest answer or analysis. 

Save the jokes for when you win, or have some sort of a consistent track record of success. 

Or make the joke about yourself and not your staff. You are, after all, the head coach and the one who gets all the credit when things go well. Take the accountability and responsibility when things do not go well.