Buzz Williams on Maryland basketball's exhibition win vs. UMBC, turnover rate, Pharrel Payne's debut

Ahmed Ghafir
11 hours ago
9 min read

Everything that head coach Buzz Williams said after Maryland men’s basketball’s 82-81 exhibition win vs. UMBC:

On what Buzz Williams wanted to see vs. UMBC

“We've tried to focus since last Saturday when we played private scrimmage on three things - competitive stamina, competing at a high level whether our team has the ball or the opponent has the ball, and trying to increase our endurance relative to that stamina. Elite communication. Can we say something that helps you, that helps our team? If you're on the court. I think we're doing a better job as a program of those not being on the floor, saying things that matter. We need the guys on the floor to help one another at a higher rate, relative to using their voice, saying some things that can help. And then we need to be much more physical. More physical whether we have the ball, whether they have the ball, whether the ball is on the ground, whether the ball is loose, whether the ball is shot. Wherever the ball is, how can we be much more physical in how we operate? And so those have been the three things that we've tried to discuss, the three things that we've practiced, the three things that we're wanting to gather clips of to show them. This is good. This is not quite good enough. How can you make it better and try to keep the focus on us and those priorities?

On the early chemistry

“I think who they are, they're good people. They're trying to figure out what we're asking them to do. It's 15 new players. Every day is a brand new day. Brand new day playing at XFINITY. Brand new day playing an exhibition game. Brand new day. Tomorrow is a day off going into our first real, actual week. And so how can we be accountable for our work in that day? And then how can we measure our improvement with each passing day? The chemistry, it's such an intangible thing. I do think they're making progress in that way. One scrimmage, one exhibition, and I think we've had 26 or 27 practices so we just need to continue to see if we can have improvement in those in those ratios.”

On Darius Adams finishing with 19 points on 3-13 shooting

“We're going to need all of those guys to improve. I think our turnover rate was one thing from an offensive standpoint, that whether it's [Darius Adams] or any of those guys that are primary ball handlers, we've got to lessen that. The two times that we have competed against another team, our turnover rate has been too high. DA’s talented with the ball. He does get fouled at a high rate. We'll need our team to be fouled at a high rate. I was encouraged. We were the first team to the bonus in the first half. I can't remember - maybe we were in the second half. It was a lot closer race in the second half. But we want to shoot more balls than the opponent. We want to shoot more free throws than the opponent. The two things that aid in that the most are playing with a low turnover rate and a high offensive rebounding rate. Tonight, we turned it over too much and we allowed them too many extra possessions on the offensive glass. And so from a statistical standpoint, it was fairly close to a push in regards to shooting more balls, but it was because we played with too high of a turnover rate and we allowed them to get too many extra possessions on the offensive glass.”

On Pharrel Payne finishing with 26 points, 9 rebounds

“I thought we probably needed to play him nine minutes and four seconds longer than we did. I thought his physicality was excellent, and that was statistically the highest number of free throws at the highest percentage of his college career, so that's encouraging. Again, whether it's DA tonight, whether it's [Pharrel] tonight, those two guys shot 24 free throws and made 19. So from a statistical standpoint, I mean 30 of our points came from the free throw line. I know that's kind of an outlier stat but that's one that we're going to probably need to lean into more often. Can we get the clock stopped? Can we be the first team to the bonus? Can we win first team to the bonus by two media timeouts maybe? Can we defend without fouling? And then can we help our OER by making a high percentage of free throws, which [Pharrel] was for sure physical. We're probably going to need him to play even better than he did tonight.”

On the freshmen playing in the backcourt

“We want to accrue as much information in real time as possible. And so DA played – well DA never came out. [Andre Mills] played, we needed him to play more. He needs to defend without fouling. Willie didn't play a minute, and whatever that is, 27 seconds, I think that every possession - they've never been in a timeout, they've never warmed up for a game, they've never been in a half time of a division one game. And so how can I do a good job of not overloading them with information and trying to help maybe filter down I only need you to think about these things, and I only need you to execute these things. And so all three of those guys that started on the perimeter, that was their first game, and that's good long-term. It just - it's a steep learning curve and it's a steep learning curve because they've never done it. But I like who they are. I like the direction that they're wanting to go in. It's just the volatility of the learning and the executing. There's going to be some bumps in it and we're gonna have to figure out how to handle those bumps a little better than we did tonight.”

On an area Maryland can be more consistent in

“Without, kind of, like, given all of our secrets, we're not good enough to have too many. But one thing that we tried to focus on, that we learned last weekend going into this week is trying to words we use, trying to take more predictable shots. Predictable shots meaning we expected you to shoot that ball for two reasons. One, if within the possession, it's more predictable, we'll have a better chance to offensive rebound. Two, if we're playing until that schematic time relative to the words we talk about and explain to them, hopefully we'll play with a lower turnover rate and then can we get fouled at a higher rate? And so some of it is, it's not really - there's not much depth to it. You want to give them a little bit of a wiggle room, but relative to the group that we were playing and the possession and time of possession, that's kind of how we plan this week, is how can we win time of possession so that we're more predictable in what we're doing offensively? And then sometimes when you're predictable offensively, it gives you a chance to get your defense set and you're not giving up as many points in transition.”

On the center spot when Pharrel Payne was on the bench

“Because of the foul trouble tonight, we were playing three forwards out of position so to say just because Dre had fouled out. And so within a 200 minute game, if you think of it from a perimeter standpoint, 120 minutes on the perimeter, 80 minutes at the forward spot. We probably played more because of the good things that UMBC was beating us with. We played more with three forwards that didn't know what they were doing with the third forward being a guard, just in hopes that we could try to get a stop and finish with the rebound.

My first answer would be, we need [Pharrel] to be in better shape, and that's probably the head coach's fault. And then the second answer was, we don't need his shoes to blow out because that was about four of the minutes when he was having to change shoes. So better shoes, a better head coach that gets them in better shape. And then the third thing would be, we probably need to spend a few minutes when we're playing out of position where we're on the same page on both sides of the ball.”

On the injuries status ahead of the season opener

“I know this is our first time together, and I technically don't know who any of you guys are and I mean this respectfully, so I'm saying it in the right intent of heart. I know the Big Ten will mandate it. I'm not exactly sure when that is, but whenever player injuries are required for us to follow protocol, we will. But I try - it's just been my policy. I just try to stay away from all of the health not because I'm trying to keep a secret, and I appreciate the following that we have with you guys but I want to keep a little bit of the medical privacy private, just because I think that's fair to the young man. I also think it's fair to their family. And then the second thing is, is like, as of this time last night, we had more healthy bodies than we did at tip off. And so it just changes. And it can change at any point in time. And I think when - I should give my attention and my energy and my emotion and my focus to the guys that are going to play, regardless of their age, regardless of how many. And then the guys that are not playing, we need to give our energy and focus to getting them back as fast as we can. But with injuries, it's hard to dictate. And so I've just tried to stay away from it. And then that's not because I'm at Maryland, it's just because there's so many other factors, I just try to stay away from it.”

On what Myles Rice has meant to the program

“What he overcame prior to going to Indiana is like worthy of a good article by you. It's a - there's some layers there. There's not a lot of depth, but there are some layers. The year after COVID, we played Washington State in the Final Four of the NIT in New York. And Myles was on that team. And Myles had beat cancer at that point. The next year, Myles went into the portal. I talked to Myles for the first time the first time he went in the portal, and I did an awful job recruiting him because I spent the entire conversation talking about his life story and basically asking him what you just asked me. I was really caught off guard by his explanation, the things that he learned, how it changed his heart, how it changed his life. He went into the portal the following year and before I decided to accept the job here, I had asked Dr. Pines for that morning to spend time with each player that had eligibility remaining at Texas A&M. And that morning, Myles was starting his second full day with his mom and dad on campus for an official visit. So I went on a walk with all of the young men that had eligibility. And then I asked Lyle [Wolf] to bring Myles and Mr. And Mrs. Rice to my house at the completion of those walks. And just like I did with the kids with eligibility, I showed them the MOU that I hadn't signed and I explained to them what had been going on the previous 48 hours. And I did the same with Myles and his parents because I knew I was going to need to make a decision in the next couple of hours and that was the first time in my career that that had ever happened. And so I didn't try to recruit Myles to come to Maryland. That wasn't the intent of the conversation, but I knew within a couple hours, if I was taking that job that my family and I would be on a plane, and he would still be on a visit to Texas A&M. And so he ended up coming and making a decision to come here before he ever visited. A lot of that, I think, is he probably knew more about Maryland than I did from being in the league. And so his life story is incredible, very articulate, as you know. Built 1,000% on the right things and we're going to need him and everybody who did play or who didn't play to be dramatically better than we were the last three hours. And he'll be a big piece of that.”

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