Buzz Williams on Bucknell win, Maryland men's basketball's rebounding, Kaden House

13 hours ago

8 min read

Everything that head coach Buzz Williams said after Maryland men's basketball controlled Bucknell, 96-67:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSrWsrXfwR4

On what Buzz learned from the season opener

"I thought the energy was great. There was a lot of first game jitters. Congratulations to Bucknell. Very well coached. Their zone caused us problems. We were prepared for it. We didn't execute very well, but we were just a little sped up at times. Not from malicious thoughts or actions. Just a lot of first game stuff. Not all of it bad, big parts of it good, but just encouraged by who they are and the togetherness that they want to play with and that they're trying to do what we're asking."

On missing ten straight shots, then 21-5 run to end first half

"I don't think much was changed tactically. We adjusted some of our zone offense priorities. How they were playing their 1-3-1 was a little different than how we saw them play their 1-3-1 last year. We didn't have any access to their preseason games, so they played two different zones last year, and we were prepared for both. But their slides were a little different tonight than they were. Their personnel's changed some too. But I don't think other than that there would be anything that was tactically different."

On dominating the boards, 28 offensive rebounds

"What we've been trying to do a better job of in the week that we've been off is defensive rebound percentage. We were not great in the three preseason games. We were great at offensive rebound percentage. We were trying to continue to give awareness to turnover rate. We did pretty well with that. And then our rim shot percentage needs to improve. So those were the three priorities from me relative to the team. We practiced four times this week. We gave practice itinerary time to those three things and then my voice was only about those three things all week. And anything that they saw from me relative to clips were about that.

I think, as you know, we're huge proponents of shooting more balls, including free throws, than the opponent. We can't turn the ball over if we're going to have a chance to get an offensive rebound. We can't turn the ball over if we're going to have a chance to get a free throw. But what has been brought to our attention in a private sort of way is collectively we have not done a good job on the defensive class, and we were much more aware of what to do when the ball was on the ground and on the rise, our execution and the level of physicality we played with was much better."

On 22 points from Andre Mills

"I think [Andre] will improve. This is the first game since the first half of Georgia Tech, and I know that Tommy [Buljan] didn't play against Georgia Tech, but Bishop [Boswell] only played those first six minutes in the first half. So, in what you've seen and what you've heard, it's the first time we had everybody. And it was the first game, and similar to the first question, a little sped up, a little anxious, all to be expected. I think we'll sort through the rotation. I do think Dre, in regards to the ruggedness that he has always played with, his efficiency has continued to improve. We need him to be a more productive defensive rebounder than he's been. We need our team to be, but I thought that we could rely on him multiple times tonight and I thought he had good poise in how we were reliant on him."

Ten different players playing 10+ minutes

"I don't know that we'll -- we've done that once in my career, where ten players played double-figure minutes. That's hard to do in a 200-minute game, as you know. I do like the versatility that we have. I do like that we can potentially play in various ways, offensively and defensively. I'm not quite comfortable yet with what that grouping or those rotations would be, dependent upon how we want to play. And then transparently, some of those ten players that played were the lack of maturity employees we needed at certain times. So some of it was me saying that's enough. We can't -- we have to value the possession greater, whether that's offensively or defensively. So some of those hockey subs were because of me, not because of the score."

On Baba Oladotun settling in as second half

"He is a beautiful person. He's a lot better person than anyone would think, and he wants to do right. He's a student of the game. He has an elite work ethic. He shot. I mentioned this, I think, to you guys 47,000 balls the first seven weeks of this year in our gym. He shot over 10,000 balls on the days in October when we were on campus. The portions of Baba have zero to do with his work ethic, have zero to do with his character. Any 17-year-old that's supposed to be in high school. No matter who the opponent is, who's playing in his hometown state in game number one, he is going to be sped up. We had some 23-year-olds that were sped up. Do I think that his ceiling is ultra high, for sure? But I don't want to coach him for who he is today. I want to coach him and the rest of our team with vision on who they're going to be a month from today, two months from today. And the physicality of the game when you're 17, no matter who the team you're playing is, is going to be different than what you've competed against."

On 11 assists to 13 turnovers

"I've mentioned to them, again without giving the scouting report away for Coach Cooley to listen to, but Coach Cooley would say the same thing, and I don't know what their score was tonight, or Coach Odom, or anybody else. All coaches want to keep the ball. You know what I mean? They don't want to give it to the other team, so I don't know that that's necessarily a secret. The one thing that I mentioned to our team, not knowing how much zone they were going to play was regardless of what defense they're in, how many of our turnovers will they cause, and how many of the turnovers will be from our lack of maturity? Us trying to make a home run play, us trying to create something that's not there. Some of that is first game sort of talk, and some of that is you don't want to be in the teens. You're probably going to be in the teens at the pace that we're going to play from a turnover percentage. You want to be in as low a teens as possible. And we haven't been great transparently in our three preseason games. And tonight we were 13%. Relative to who we're playing in the remaining six or seven games in the month of November, is 13% a standard? We would probably be okay with that, but the things that we've identified, turnover rate needs to be as low as possible. That's what any coach would say. But we don't want it to be in the high teens. We want it to be in the low teens. We have to finish at the rim because we're going to put pressure on the rim. That pressure could be [Pharrel Payne]. That pressure could be somebody going downhill. But the decisions at the rim, it doesn't mean you have to make it. You have to make the right decision at the rim, and then how we called it one and dones tonight, just because players think one and done means something else. When they shoot it, how many times do they get it back? How many possessions are we going to be one and done? And so our defensive rebound percentage was 81, which is elite. They had they had six offensive rebounds. One of those six was a team offensive rebound. So, respectfully, that's great, but that's probably about what it needs to be relative to tonight."

On Guillermo Del Pino, whether available vs. Georgetown

"He was unavailable."

"I'm not sure."

Platoon subs, whether Buzz looked for anything specific in lineups

"I don't think that we have in week number one. I don't think now that everybody's healthy and we wanted to stay that way. I don't think we have a great pulse on it yet. I think we have ideas that we're continuing to flesh out. As I mentioned earlier, some of those hockey subs were. we do have multiple really good players who can play, but when it gets a little out of sorts and there's a lack of execution on either end, that's one good thing about having depth. Some depth has to sit down and sometimes the best words that I can have are none, and just sub them out. And so, I didn't think that there were gaps in the game where anything was wrong, and it would be normal. But I do think that there were also too many down backs where we weren't valuing the ball, we weren't trying to do the things that we need to do defensively, and that's why I set those five guys the way that I did. I think I did that twice. May have done it three times."

On 72 possessions

"I do think we we will probably play with as much tempo as we can while understanding the value, and I also think that we can play multiple people and continue to play at that pace. I think the delicate, invisible line when a coach says that is, can you play at that pace and execute at the level that's required to win at the highest level? And I want to play with pace, but I also want to play with poise. I don't want to play with pace and no poise, but I don't think that you have to necessarily -- I understand depending upon how people count offensive rebounds. This says a 72 possession game. The defense that you play or the defense that the opponent plays obviously can change the tenor of a possession game. I thought their zone did a great job of shortening the game, and so now can you get a stop and you're not taking it out of the net? Okay, that encourages us to play where we can tilt the floor and play with more pace. But I do think that we have an above-average speed team."

On Kaden House's defensive intensity

"He's an outlier. I love him. He's an outlier in who he is as a person. He's an outlier in how fast twitch his brain is and he's an outlier from a defensive standpoint, on the relentlessness and aggressiveness that he plays with. I don't know if you were at the Georgia Tech game. I can't remember, but he played 14 and a half minutes, close to 15 minutes, and fouled out. And I told him about six weeks ago, you have some gifts that were in your mother's womb and I'm not going to object to those gifts. But if I could mention one thing to you, we need you to be available to play whenever I want to play you. And so I don't want your reaching or your instincts to prevent you from having the availability to play. I don't know if you remember. I think it was Coach Griffin's last time out, and [Kaden] went for a steal. We call that a T-wop. Take yourself out of the play. He T-woped over there on the side that Coach Williams sits on, and the kid hit a three, and they called a timeout. He's walking to me, they're walking to the huddle, and he goes, 'coach, I promise I thought I was going to get that one,' and that's kind of a delicate line because he can get it from you at 85 feet from the rim because he's so aggressive. And so I think he'll figure that out. He's improved a little bit better against West Virginia on that, much better last Saturday on that. But yeah, I think his offense will come from his defense, and I think he's such. I think he has such prowess as a defender. I think his defense will help our offense, particularly relative to pace. Nine live ball turnovers, so nine steals. I don't know how we converted on those steals, but that's a part of the pace answer too. And a lot of that, I would say, happened when [Kaden] was on the floor. He may not have got it, but because of how he's playing, it's leading to the next one."

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