Buzz Williams on learning about the Big Ten, developing Maryland basketball's roster, early surprises

Ahmed Ghafir
Oct 9
3 min read

Everything that Maryland men's basketball head coach Buzz Williams said on the BTN set at Big Ten Media Day on Thursday:

On learning more about the Big Ten

“Elite coaches, distinct style of play per coach, almost. It's been interesting spending time learning from each of those coaches, not really paying attention, Dave, to their roster, because it's ever changing, but just as coach would do, just having a feel for how they play, how they coach. It was fun watching and learning from all of the coaches in this league.”

On the difference he expects in the Big Ten

“It seems as though, based on - this is stereotypical - it seems as though the level of coaching, the level of talent, probably similar. I think the styles of play, probably play more towards skill, maybe not quite as many athletes above the rim. It's hard to know - you know this better than I do from your time as a coach - I don't think that it means that it's not athletic or that it's not physical. But the approach to the skill and how you defend that skill seems to be a little different. Obviously, I haven't coached the game but it seems like the genre is a little bit more skilled than physical and above the rim in the paint.”

On having four Aggie transfers and how they have helped through the transition

“We had two kids that red shirted that were freshmen last year that didn't play, so they still haven't played. And then we had two guys going into their last year of eligibility. Those were the four guys that we recruited at Texas A&M that followed us here. Every staff member came except coach [Dale] Layer retired. I used to work for coach and we were together for decade plus, and then one of our assistants was hired in the Mountain West at Colorado State in a promotion. Everybody else came. One thing that I've learned that I didn't take into account is as we're teaching 11 new players things that they've never seen, we seem to have four more assistant coaches than I was expecting. And not necessarily what they're saying is right. It happened this morning at practice. One of the redshirt freshman, in the appropriate way, was trying to help his teammate. I was like ‘hey, man, you got to give him the right information. You gave him half right information.’ And one thing that I've tried to be ultra sensitive to and aware of is [Solomon Washington] and [Pharrel Payne] have played a lot of minutes, but George [Turkson] and Dre [Mills] haven't played any so they're just like the other 11 guys who have yet to play for us. And so from a precedent standpoint, I'm trying to be sensitive to we have to make sure that what we're doing and how we're doing it and why we're doing it, that we're all kind of moving in the same direction.”

On being more patient, Buzz’s wife watching Thursday’s practice

“Whether I know him or met him in June, I haven't been as patient as I should be. My wife happened to be at practice today because I forgot a few things that I needed to bring here. And she goes, ‘you might want to calm down a little bit’. And I said, Were you watching the same thing I was watching? She goes, ‘yeah, you can calm down.’ And I go, well, I apologize.”

Evaluating Maryland’s play style in 2025-26

“I do have a better feel for our personnel and I'm trying to adapt to their skillset on what I think gives us our best chance. I think there is some threads of commonality in how we play. I do want to shoot more balls than the other team, where that's kind of an evolution of our time at A&M from an offensive rebounding standpoint, even a defensive rebounding standpoint. I don't know that we completely know how we're going to play offensively, but from a defensive standpoint, we're trying to have a little bit more synergy as we go with each passing day to get on the same page.”

On any early surprises

“I really like Elijah Saunders. I love who he is as a human. Tough-minded, tough competitor, high IQ as a person, high IQ as a player. But his skillset, I think, to Dave's question, we've got to continue to find ways to have him involved, using his versatility not just defensively, but offensively as well.”

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