Buzz Williams after Michigan State loss: "we've got a long way to go"

Ahmed Ghafir
51 minutes ago
2 min read

After Maryland men’s basketball’s historic loss vs. Michigan State, head coach Buzz Williams met briefly with color analyst Chris Knoche to answer what went wrong in the 43-point loss:

On the loss vs. Michigan State

“They play with so much gravity. And it's not one player, it's the entire team. And really fast, make or miss, incredible pressure at the rim, when the ball is in the air. And most of their shots, they want to be at the rim. And so the physicality, the mentality, the strength, the aggressiveness that they play with. In order for it to be a game, you have to match. And that match starts as soon as they gain possession, however that is. You scored, it starts right then. You missed and they got the defensive rebound, it begins right then. And too often times, we exhaled at the moment in time there was a possession change. And so entering today's game in Big Ten play, 62% of their shots were taken in the first 12 seconds. I don't have the analytics on that for our game yet, but I anticipate that it would be starkly similar. In some ways, we competed on the glass. In their range, we didn't get completely demolished. They had nine offensive rebounds. We had non offensive rebounds. So there was some growth in that regard since Wednesday in Champaign. But as we talked about post game at Illinois, and as I mentioned to Johnny in pregame, the force, as you said, that they play with is phenomenal.”

On addressing the loss

“There's probably some better ways than what I'll do. The same things that I tell you, the same things that I tell Johnny, same things that I say postgame to the other media, that's the same things that I tell them. I just, team rule number one, always tell the truth, no matter your emotional state. Secrets or lies. I'm not going to keep a secret - we have a long, long, millions of miles to go in every possible way. On the floor, off the floor. I am grateful for the 97 years of experience of our staff. They're continuing to find the right words, the right pictures, the things that we're trying to improve in, the things that we're deficient in. And there's multiple things. And we've got to continue to make growth. And whether it's Purdue, whether it's the next game, whether it was the last game, when you're competing against the best, a lot of those things translate regardless of opponent and regardless of locale of the game. And some of the same things that we struggled with on Wednesday night are the same things that we struggled with tonight. And so we've got to continue to find ways to have improvement, whether that's in the film room, whether that's in skill development, whether that's in the weight room, whether that's in recruiting, we've got a long way to go. And that's the truth, and all I know to do is tell the truth.”

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