Buzz Williams on turnovers, adjustments following 20-point loss vs. Ohio State

Ahmed Ghafir
11 hours ago
8 min read

Everything head coach Buzz Williams said after Thursday’s 20-point home loss vs. Ohio State to fall to 1-10 in Big Ten play:

On the news of Jezz Bezos ruining the Washington Post

“I met Gene [Wang] when I was at Marquette. I don't know exactly what years, and I don't look at the internet nor read anything once practice starts. You guys probably are, and if you're young, you will be. Everything's changing. College Athletics is changing and has been changing, as is the media, but the sensitivity to all of the families relative to the Post and 37 years at one place, for at the end like that. Gene, if you had a question, your first question would be, why did we give the ball to the other team? So I'll go ahead and answer that question as if Gene was here. Gene, respectfully, I'm sorry that things happened the way that it did. And if I can help in any sort of way, if you hear this, not that anybody listens to me, but if I can, I will. I thought that our 11th lineup change was to see if we could look eye-to-eye, a little bit more from a height. length standpoint. And tonight, fight from such a deficit on the glass. In many respects, I think that happened. Our offensive rebound percentage was the highest it's been in a long time. I thought our guys competed when the ball was on the ground at a really high level. I thought when the ball was in the air, our fight was as good as it's been in a long time. I think the problem was we turned the ball over 100% more than they did, and obviously they scored 24 points off of our turnovers. For us to be able to shoot as many balls as they shot says a lot about our fight. We need to defend without fouling. We allowed them twice as many free throws and we had twice as many turnovers. So in many respects, Gene, I think that was the difference.”

Whether Buzz is more concerned about the offense or defense

“I'm concerned about both. And I thought that stereotypically, not individualistically. But if you looked at the last - even if you - I know this was the first game of the second half of Big Ten play. If you looked at the first half, you could for sure pick out multiple categories offensively. You could for sure pick out multiple categories defensively. But I thought the thing that was intertwined was our defensive rebound percentage and our offensive rebound percentage. And how could we salvage that? And would that category, in regards to when the ball is in the air, would that maybe hedge us a little bit on both sides. I thought our basket-assist rate was the highest that it's been all season long, or in conference play. I thought we were sharing the ball much better. I thought their zone caused us problems, particularly in the first half.

In regards to what are we going to do? Where is it going to go? A lot of our turnovers were from that. We for sure need to score more and we for sure need to prevent the opponent from scoring as much. And our thought, collectively as a staff and numerically was how can we do a better job on the defensive glass and offensive glass. And we did, and we did. We didn't do a great job on the defensive glass. We did a much, much better job on the offensive glass. But we just played with too high of a turnover rate.”

On the turnovers

“I don't remember the exact percentage been of our turnover rate on Sunday. It was for sure higher today. Our basket assist rate was much better. And our offensive rebound percentage was well. We had zero offensive rebounds in the first half against Purdue, which was part of our thought on trying to play bigger, starting Collin [Metcalf], starting Dre [Mills] and [Darius Adams], moving Solo more to the perimeter so that Solo is more running in instead of fighting against taller, bigger. I thought Elijah [Saunders] was much more confident offensively. That helped us tonight versus his production on Sunday. It's just difficult to play with that turnover rate and give them so many points in the broken floor.”

On the rotations, substitutions

“Can we get five guys to play really hard when the ball's on the ground and play even harder when the ball is in the air? I don't know - yeah, we had 11 offensive rebounds, 17 defensive rebounds. Diggy didn't have any. Aleks [Alston] didn't have any. Willie didn't have any. Every other player did. Diggy is not going to - Diggy is not a go get on offense. Alex is. Willie's a get back on defense. So yeah. I think with the guys that we played, how can we play really hard, no matter who they are? How can they compete and try to execute, regardless of how many times we sub? And transparently, I think that we'll probably continue in that. Our last two days have been very competitive in how we've structured practice. Our guys have responded in a really good way. Shootaround was excellent. Energy was good. Governor Moore had unbelievable words to our group post shootaround. I think that we'll probably continue with that.”

On Myles Rice’s status

“I think he was on the injury report. I don't regularly know what time that's turned in, but yes, sir, he's out.”

Whether the nature of turnovers is concerning, message to the team

“Yeah, passing and catching. Big Ten in February, or peewee basketball, little dribblers in February, pass and catch. Try to pass it with two hands, catch it with two hands. Use both eyes, if you can. We show every possession where we play off two feet, where we pass with two hands, where we catch with two hands. We show that every day, including Game Day. We've assigned that as a bucket of responsibility for one of our coaches. We have made great progress in that regard. Is it related to ball security? Absolutely. Is it related to assisted baskets? If the ball is on the bounce, the ball has eyes. Can we have somebody in front of the ball? Can we have somebody behind the ball? That would be three guys. Can the tallest guy go opposite the ball? Maybe that's in the alley, maybe that's in the dunker spot. And then the fifth guy is what we call the one more. So if the ball is penetrated baseline, there's going to be one in front, one behind. We call the one in front drift, the one behind feel. If it's going baseline, the dunker spot is the middle of the charge circle, so to say. And then the fifth player is reacting to the ball. So if I throw it in front, that one more is shortening the distance of the pass. We call it a magnet. He's magneting to the ball. If I throw it behind me, it should be on the same boards. If I rolled it, if I just drive in there off two feet and I rolled it behind me, we call that the fill. It's a little bit different in regards to the angles. If I drive it middle penetration to the nail, there's probably going to be two on a fence. We want one somebody behind and then the guy that's the tallest guy would be in the dunker spot. So not to act like we have all the answers in regards to passing and catching, but to your question, it is pass and catch. It is both hands, both feet, both eyes. But it's also having an outlet to pass it to. And I think sometimes it's as much the outlet as it is the passing and catching. I do think tonight there [were] more errors in passing and catching than there was [in] our around the horn movement. But we do around the horn for eight minutes every day to start practice. And then this is the wrong term to use, I think old school coaches called it dry offense instead of no defense. So run dry offense. And then I'll just scream around the horn and that means the play's over. Somebody put it on the floor and now you're going to play around the horn. And we do the same thing when we throw it inside. A lot of our actions, particularly in secondary, when we throw it inside, we want the same action. It's just more of a split.”

On progress on avoiding outcome-based resulting

“I have a lot of gratitude towards our guys for how hard they're continuing to fight and try. And I completely, 1,000% understand the expectations of the program, of all programs at this level, particularly the University of Maryland, in regards to the results. And so I've got to continue to find ways to do better. I think you have to be careful when you're 1-10 that anything you say comes across as an excuse. I never want to justify losing in any sort of way, but I am thankful and I tell them this. And what I tell them, I tell you guys, I think the competitive spirit that they played with our huddles, hustling after one another. We didn't get every 50-50 ball tonight, but we were trying better. We had more unclean rebounds tonight than we've had in a while. And so I appreciate the resilience and the togetherness amidst all the volatility of things that we can't control and things that we can't, that they've continued to hang in there.”

On roster construction and whether it translates to game-to-game decisions

“I think that's part of it, I think - and Mr. Smith and I talk about this a lot since he's been here. - you want to have a sustainable program. You want to have a good team every year. And so upon arrival with zero players, how do you put together the balance of that? And for sure, we could have done a better job in regards to do you want to sign everybody from the portal? Do you only want to sign high school players? There's not many high school players available in the spring. And then the other piece to that were some of our decisions in who we signed in the fall. Obviously, didn't know that we were going to have more man games missed than that we've had. But the young players that we've signed, I love who they are as people and what they're going to become as players. And I also understand we have to make decisions relative to the young players that have eligibility who may be interested in returning, while at the same time, from a roster construction standpoint, knowing that we're going to have to add experience from the portal. And so it's studying, trying to be subjective slash objective, in putting that together so that the program and the team is better and sustainable.”

On the changes since Purdue

“I like them. I think the things that we're doing on makes have more movement, more interchangeability, similar to Ben's question. I don't want to be hamstrung to who has to play where? I don't think that would be the filter that we want to make decisions in as of now. I want to play the guys that compete really hard, that can execute what we're trying to do. Whether we have the ball or the opponent has the ball. We didn't do a lot of that tonight because they were in zone 85% of the possessions. So obviously, when you play zone, your playbook catalog is going to shrink. I anticipate that will happen a lot on Sunday afternoon based on what I know about Minnesota. I do think that we've made some progress since we played Purdue, and what we want to do on makes. And even within what we're doing on misses into secondary, and then what we flow into, it was too stagnant, too often tonight in the zone. And then the turnover rate obviously didn't help.”

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