Buzz Williams on Michigan, creating & limiting turnovers, measuring progress

After a week-long break and ahead of Maryland men’s basketball’s home opener vs. second-ranked Michigan on Saturday night, head coach Buzz Williams dove into the latest around the matchup, his team’s progress through the first quarter of the season and more:

On Michigan’s size and how to counter it

“I've enjoyed studying them, if you're asking you probably study a lot of the analytics. It's just historical how good they are thus far through 10 games. Just looking at KenPomnumbers, which I trust, maybe the best in the last decade, Coach has done a fabulous job everywhere he's been. Their size is part of it. Their talent is just as much a part of it as their size. Offensively, it's hard to find a chink in their armor. And the more I've watched them, and it's not because other coaches have said it, but the more you watch it as a coach, you realize that part of the reason they're so good offensively is because their defense is first in the country. And so a lot of why they're playing so fast is what their defense creates. And so it is their size, it is their talent, it is their depth, it is their coach, it is their coaching staff. And if your average margin of winning is 30, you're doing a lot of really good things well. And it can't just be one thing, but their size is impressive.”

On Buzz’s relationship with assistant Josh Chambers

“I'll try to be succinct with my words so it doesn't become Josh media availability, but he's deserving of it.

A lot of why I still coach is because of who's on my staff. And that's not to negate the historically successful program that Maryland is. But regardless of where we've been, a lot of my wife and I are still twirling around doing what we're doing professionally is because of who we're around every day. And Josh has been with us 11 years. I met Josh March the 23rd, 2014. He was a manager at Virginia Tech. That was the day of my press conference and I've known Josh ever since. 

And I knew his wife when she was a player. I knew him before they got married, since they've been married, prior to them being parents, prior to coach Sammy being my daughter's coach, prior to being Josh, what his job has become. Josh wanting to work for Nike and designing shoes and then Josh wanting to come back and me explaining to the administration at Virginia Tech, I don't know how to explain this, it's kind of like what Dabo does with some of his guys, but that's what Josh is. And I want Josh to be the first one in college basketball. And that was a long time ago and a lot of people have tried to hire Josh into a lot of creative type positions. He loves being on a team. It is difficult to articulate exactly what he does within our program, but everybody - players and coaches - know the buckets of responsibilities he has. Creative would be a poor adjective for how talented he is. He's not a coach. He doesn't want to be a coach, but he has the ability to explain things to coaches where they can understand and he has the ability to brand when branding wasn't a thing. Like a lot of the things that we did before NIL became NIL, we were the first to do. Whether that's the media guy, whether that's social media, all of the things that you understand better than I do now, Josh still understands. And he's just taken over. I think I've taught classes the last nine years of my career prior to coming here - he handled all of that for me. He was with me everywhere I went. When I do corporate speaking engagements, he's a part of all of it. He handles all of that. He's just really gifted. All of the Christmas gifts that our staff gets, Josh is in charge of. I love him. I love his wife. He's an integral part of our operation professionally and I anticipate he will always be a part of my life personally.”

Where Maryland has the advantage against Michigan

“I think our whole operation has been really engaged in the construction of all of this. Whether you're talking about Josh, whether you're talking about our coaches, whether you're talking about our players, an opportunity like this is - it's rare. When you play the number one team in the country, when you play the number one team in the country at home, when you play the number one team in the country at home, and it's a sellout. Like that happens very rarely. And I think the opportunity for us to learn how did those players get to Michigan? How are they utilizing those players? How are those players so big? How are those players so good? What are they doing defensively? What are they doing offensively? I think this will be the fourth game we've played against a top-20 NET team. And so we've had other opportunities, and it's happening at a very fast rate considering this is our first year. I don't know exactly where we would have an advantage, because if you look at any component - if there's 12 different components to both sides of the ball - they're almost ranked in the top ten in all of them. I think what we have learned in studying them prior to presenting to our team is what is it that we do and how can we do it better? And then what are the things that we haven't done well, that they do really well, that we can maybe prevent at the rate we've been doing it. And so learning from this and studying this, we've had more time to study than we did versus Gonzaga or versus Alabama. I'm not saying that that study time matters, but as our program has went about the construction of what we're trying to do in month one and a half. This has been really good because it's such a unique opportunity.”

On the Big Ten home opener

“I don't think this should be about me. I appreciate you asking. Like I watched Iowa and Iowa State a little bit last night because I thought some of the things that Coach Johnson had our group doing defensively was really good. Our offense caused our defense some problems and we're trying to figure some of that out. But like, I was watching that game last night because there's remnants of what we do defensively that Iowa State does. And when I watch Michigan, I know I've studied all of their games, not just their Big Ten games, but to be able to do this at home. Red Out game, game number one, number one team in the NET, number one defense in the country, number one two-point field goal percentage offense, number one two-point field goal percentage defense - like there's a standard that they have. And so we're going to be able to see where we are at home game number one. And I think in a demented way, that's all really healthy, not just for now to learn those lessons and apply, but it's really healthy for where we're wanting to be in the future.”

Gameplan vs. Aday Mara

“We count a block as a live ball turnover. I don't know if I've ever said that publicly, but internally, we count a block as a live ball turnover. And we've had live ball turnovers. That's been a problem. And when you play a team with the size that they have, specifically 15, I think 23 is pretty good at it. I think 21 is pretty good at it. Those would be the three best, in my opinion. When you shoot the ball and they block it, that's a live ball turnover. Whether the ball is in the ground or the ball is on the air, we have to do a really good job. And I think his defensive presence as a rim protector is significant. The one thing that I think they do a really good job utilizing him is he's maybe the best outlet passer of somebody his size I've ever coached against. Part of the reason they're really fast - 70% of their shots have been shot in the first ten seconds of the clock. Some of that is live ball turnovers. Some of that, to your question, I think, is blocked shots. Some of that is it's hard to get to the rim, which is why they're two-point field goal percentage defense is number one because you're not going to get to the rim. And if you're foolish enough to just keep shooting balls, they're going to keep rejecting balls. But when they get a defensive rebound, that ball is out, and 15 is not their leading defensive rebounder but all of them - those three, specifically - they are elite at getting the ball to the next guard, [Elliot Cadeau], [LJ Cason], [Trey McKenney], but [Aday Mara] for his size is as good as I've ever seen in that regard.”

On why players end up in the chair closest to the coaches before/after substitutions

“That's kind of evolved, and it's even evolving here. None of it is a bad answer. I think they hold the chair for me. I just haven't sat down in a long time. But on occasion, when my heart rate gets up during the free throw, I try to sit down. Sometimes I need to sit down because I need to listen to a coach tell me what I'm doing wrong. How we've utilized that chair in the past is I'm not the best when someone's coming out of the game at engaging them in conversation, unless it's a dead ball. I want my attention to be towards the guys that are playing. And so when the ball is in live action, I'm probably not going to pay much attention to who I subbed out. But on occasion, when they pass me, what has taken place here and on the road through the first ten games is I'll tell them, hey, just stop and talk to [Devin Johnson]. Stop and talk to [Greg Young] just because I know what needs to be addressed. It just is not the appropriate time for me to handle it. Some of it has been as we're trying to figure out as our bodies have gotten more healthy and we've had more practice, some of our guys don't know exactly what we're doing in special situations because we haven't had reps of that. So sometimes I'm subbing guys out just so that we're subbing in somebody that knows what they're doing. So a little bit of a variety of reasons. It's not necessarily a negative. [Solomon Washington] has lived in that chair a lot throughout his time with us, so he kind of thinks it's his chair instead of it being my chair. And I think that's a good thing and I hope that [Darius Adams] gets to that. I think Diggy, because he's so old, he's kind of picked up on that through a month and a half. So I think some of that is good. It's not necessarily because something has went wrong. It's more for a teaching outlet than anything else.”

On the formula for creating, limiting turnovers vs. Michigan

“If you study some of our metrics, the thing that's correlated the most is what you just mentioned. That's my opinion, not specific to Maryland and Michigan, just pick a team. And then there's kind of a layer in that that I pay attention to even more often. So you can talk about Michigan's last game, you can talk about Maryland's last game, or you could just analytically pull up any game.

There's two different types of turnovers. If you're on defense, you want either one of them. But on offense, if you have to have one, you want a dead ball turnover. Our issue offensively has been a high turnover rate, no matter the type. But more specifically, our issue has been a high turnover rate with a high propensity of live ball turnovers. And so now what ends up happening is our defensive numbers are actually worse because we're giving the ball to the other team, live ball offensively and they're scoring a layup. Now to Michigan's point, on steals, they score 1.75 points a game, which is first. So you can't give them the ball and you can't allow them a blocked shot, because in our numbers, a blocked shot is still a live ball turnover. Now we've made some changes to try to create some live ball turnovers for us and we've been okay. We've been okay. The thing that happens is similar to Iowa, 18 turnovers at Iowa, 12 of them were live ball. That led to 21 points for Iowa. 21 points that not exclusively because they're a slow team, they're not going to necessarily shoot it right away. Michigan is going to shoot 70% of their balls in the first ten seconds, but if it's a live ball turnover, they're going to shoot it in five seconds or less and it may not have a pass. So similar to one of the earlier questions, we can't give the ball to the other team at all, but we for sure can't give the ball to the other team and the whistle didn't blow. And we have to continue to find ways to create more for us defensively. And sometimes coaches have different philosophical thoughts on can you create live ball turnovers on the ball, or can you create live ball turnovers off the ball? Iowa I think was fourth in the country in steals. It's not happening on the ball. There's some, but predominantly they're getting it off the ball because of their gap coverage. And so we're still trying to figure that out, and as we've gotten more guys healthy, we've changed some of that. That was one of the priorities that we've visited about today, but we have a turnover problem that we have to stop, and if we can get our defense to create turnovers, conversely, it helps our offense.”

On free throw efficiency, reliance on free throws

“Similar to some of the conversations that you've heard Ben, I think offensively, we're relying on free throw makes. I think it aids our points per possession. I think we attempted 38 free throws on the road in Big Ten game number one in year number one, really good. We just made I think it was our lowest percentage of the year. And that's always going to be directed by whoever shoots the most and who shoots the most for us is this year is going to be [Pharrel Payne], and thus far, from a perimeter standpoint, it's going to be [Darius Adams]. And I think both of those guys combined to shoot 50%, 24 of the 38…Those guys get fouled at a high rate, as you know, and we've had this conversation. And I think [Pharrel Payne] is number one in the country at free throw attempt rate, and going into tomorrow's game, he's shooting 72% which is, whatever, 20% higher than his college average. We just need him to make even more. And I think D.A. has to make a higher percentage too.

The thing that hurt us wasn't our shot diet. Our shot diet was fine. We didn't make rim shots the way we should, but we got fouled like 21% of the time, but we gave them the ball 20% of the time. So whether we play Michigan or whether we play another team, Mount St Mary's, we're going to need to get fouled and when we get fouled and the clock is stopped, we need to collect as many points as we can so that our defense is set.”

On whether anything was emphasized during the week of practice

“I think our guys have confidence to compete. We have made - our staff was we were together for four and a half, six and a half hours on Sunday. We've made internally, we continue to develop new processes to establish what we want to be about, not only now, but what we want to be about in the future. And we're learning from these new dynamics within the landscape, like what you guys - all the things that you guys would ask about Michigan, within the new processes that we're developing internally that we don't share, are those processes helping to create the precedent that we want in year number one? And as we're making those decisions in those processes, we need to make sure we're taking the latest information of the best teams in the country to make sure that [does] that make sense when we play XYZ next week, two weeks from now? Because we don't want to continue to change, but we want to make sure that we're changing in the right direction. And honestly, I've been very encouraged. Our guys have - we went Monday morning, Monday morning, Monday afternoon, Tuesday morning, Tuesday afternoon, Thursday morning, Thursday afternoon, and then we went again [Friday] morning. Our guys have been great. But that's been their mantra on receiving the truth, receiving the information that our coaches have been presenting, and our coaches are working really hard to continue to make sure that we're refining those processes in a way that they understand and, most importantly, that we can execute.”

Measuring progress vs. Michigan, Virginia

“I know the score will take care of itself as a book you read. I understand we're judged that way. But I think our processes, you've got to have momentum and lessons learned. From those lessons learned, you need to have momentum in your processes that help you execute those lessons at a faster rate. But until you have momentum and lessons learned and momentum in your processes, you're never going to have momentum in your results. And if we get on the roller coaster of only outcome based resulting, it's going to be a bad ride. And our guys have been really good at understanding what we're trying to accomplish. Our staff is receiving that information relative to this roster and what we're wanting to do in the future. And so I've been encouraged. Do I think that we're playing the best team in the country? Yes, sir. But if you would have asked me two Wednesdays ago, was Gonzaga the best team in the country? I would have said yes. If you would have asked me two Tuesdays ago is Alabama in the top ten? Yes, I don't know much about Coach Odom's team, but I know that next Saturday, when we're talking, I guess I'll talk to you next Friday, when we leave, that will be the fifth team that we've played that is ranked in the top 20 in the NET.

That would mean that 45% of the teams that we've played are among the nation's elite. Okay, well, that's great information for our processes. That's great information for our lessons to be learned. And we think that the combination of lessons learned in the processes leads to results. You can do it a lot of different ways. You can play teams not in the top-20, play teams in the bottom 50, and you may not learn those lessons until Martin Luther King Day or Valentine's Day. We're learning those lessons before we even get to Thanksgiving, and we're learning those lessons before we get to Christmas. Does that mean our record is going to be what we want it to be? No. Does that mean that we're trying to learn from the construction of these teams, of these programs, in this modern landscape of college athletics? We're embracing and leaning into all of that, not basing it emotionally on our results.”

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