Buzz Williams, players on Maryland men's basketball season-ending loss vs. Iowa

Ahmed Ghafir
45 minutes ago
5 min read

Everything that head coach Buzz Williams, players said after Maryland men's basketball's season ending loss vs. Iowa:

On Iowa’s second half defense

DARIUS ADAMS: I think they were able to pack the paint well. I think that was their game plan the whole time. I think we got away from getting into the paint a little bit in the second half. They played well in the second half as well, so I've got to give them credit.

On lessons learned under Buzz

DARIUS ADAMS: It's really like the little things, little margins, the possessions. It's really the little things that win games. That's probably the biggest thing I've realized since coming to play college basketball.

ISAIAH WATTS: I would say the same thing, the little things. We say small hinges swing big doors. It's not always about hitting shots. It's not always about the assists. It's not always about that type of stuff. It's more about what are you doing on the bench? What do you do before you get to the game? How was your nap? That type of stuff

On Isaiah’s first half vs. second half scoring

ISAIAH WATTS: That first half we came out with a certain confidence. We've been playing pretty well the last couple games. We got a rhythm. I think a little fatigue set in. Like DA said, they packed the paint, so we weren't able to get clean open shots like we wanted to.

On relationship with Buzz

DARIUS ADAMS: He's amazing. I have no complaints. I love playing here. We're obviously going to have our talk, and we're going to do what we think is best for me. I haven't really thought about it yet, but we're going to talk about it, and it's going to be figured out.

On whether fatigue played a role

ISAIAH WATTS: I think fatigue played -- it's always going to play a role when you play in tournaments like this, but it's more about the mental side of things. That's what we talked about coming into it, executing on the mental side. But it got hard.

DARIUS ADAMS: I think the same thing. I think that it played a factor, but it wasn't really like what made us lose. Fatigue is always going to set in with anybody.

On lessons learned in year one under Buzz

BUZZ WILLIAMS: I think probably roster construction would be one. I think the systems at each institution and better understanding how teams play, how coaches coach, how they build their roster relative to the system that they run. That would probably be the top two or three things that I would say.

On nine points, 1-of-13 shooting for Andre Mills

BUZZ WILLIAMS: 1 of 9 from the field, four turnovers. We had a turnover problem each time that we played Iowa. Not only a turnover problem by Dre, but our team turned it over too much. I think we had 18 turnovers at Iowa, 14 turnovers at our place, and then 16 today. There's a reason why they're Number 1 in the league at defensive turnovers, how they play in the gaps, how aggressive they are on all penetration. They do an incredible job obviously, the best in the league. So it's not only for us or any team, the turnovers, but for us we're dependent upon offensive rebounds, and you need to shoot it in order to get an offensive rebound, and we're dependent upon free-throw makes. Again, like any team, but again today, only seven of our turnovers were live ball, but all turnovers combined, they scored 21 points off of our turnovers. The problem for us versus Iowa in all three games was a compounding problem, not just the turnovers, but what happened on the back side of our turnover.

Evaluating year one

BUZZ WILLIAMS: It's probably hard for me to give a comprehensive answer to it. Some of the things are going to be in your control. Some of the things will not be in your control. I don't think an emotional answer for such a broad question is probably the right thing. We always have a detailed plan on how we're going to improve in each of the areas, whether that's on the floor, off the floor, what we do in the film room, what we do in the weight room. I think we've had great growth in a lot of those areas and a lot of those categories, but we always kind of divide it up into certain buckets on when we're going to evaluate all parts: How we scout, how we recruit, how we make decisions, what we do, ATOs, anything you can think of. I'm excited about learning that. I think any organization that has life and has good energy, they're always evolving, they're always learning. Probably the next time I'll see you, I could probably answer it a little bit better.

On offseason evaluations

BUZZ WILLIAMS: I would say you do that every day, similar to what DA said. The model of all of this has changed, so there's never a complete answer, just like you're seeing in college basketball. There's players being signed in December and January. There's some of them playing here right now. That's a hard question to answer, not because I'm dodging it, but the model suggests you probably have to do a little bit of that every day. How you're going to evaluate the conversations that you're going to have, there's more people involved in those conversations. The first 15 years of my years as a head coach, those conversations were pretty regimented on who you were going to talk to, when you were going to talk to. Then as things have changed, each year it's changed. Like even this year it's changing. The portal doesn't open until after the National Championship Game, whereas last year the portal opened the day after Selection Sunday. All of it is ever changing. So I don't know that there's enough data to suggest the exact right way to do it, but I do think part of it is an everyday thing.

On Iowa’s three point defense

BUZZ WILLIAMS: I think we probably scored more in the first half from 3 than they were anticipating. They're a heavy gap team. As you look at how they play, Coach is an incredible offensive coach, and a lot of what they do is mesmerizing, but what they do best is score in the charge circle. That's what we fell today defensively. I also think that defensively, with them being in the gaps, they're trying to protect the charge circle too with an undersized team like ours. So I think we probably stretched them a little bit by the 3s that we made in the first half. I wasn't in their locker room, but I would say they were trying to prevent those, or as much of a volume of those in the second half.”

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