Buzz Williams reviews what went wrong vs. Michigan, injuries, upcoming road game vs. Virginia

Ahmed Ghafir
13 minutes ago
5 min read

After being blown out against a pair of ranked teams in Las Vegas and a 19-point loss in the Big Ten opener, head coach Buzz Williams put a scare in second-ranked Michigan through the first 33 minutes on Saturday night before Michigan took over, eventually building its first double digit lead with eight minutes left and winning by 18 to push Maryland men’s basketball to 6-5 (0-2).

Head coach Buzz Williams, appreciative of “the ambiance” for his first conference game inside the Xfinity Center, pointed to the turnovers as the biggest difference for Maryland in the loss - a problem throughout the season.

Maryland has recorded at least 12 turnovers in all but two games this season and matched that total on Saturday night after Michigan turned eight turnovers into 16 points in the second half.

“I thought the thing that's hurt us the most thus far this season offensively has been our turnover rate,” Williams said during his weekly appearance on 105.7. “And I thought in the first half, to your question, we played with the lowest turnover rate we had all season long. Michigan is the number one team in the country analytically and part of that is because their defense is number one. We played with a really low turnover rate. I thought we were much more aware of the types of shots we wanted to take against Michigan when we didn't turn it over so that we would have a better chance to offensive, rebound, slash, get fouled. So we played with a low turnover rate.”

The biggest question is the status of star center Pharrel Payne, who went down in the final minutes of the first half, weeks after being carted off and avoiding major injury in the road win vs. Marquette. Williams declined to provide an update on after adding, “I want to be some level of protection for our team.”

Still, with Maryland now 0-4 in Quad One games and one more ranked opponent to close out the non-conference schedule, Williams will shift his attention toward Virginia with the team looking to capitalize on a full week of practice to engineer its second road win of the season.

“They're going to be the fifth team that we've played in the NET ranked in the top 20 by the time we get to Charlottesville,” Williams said of Virginia. “So a lot of what has transpired in the first seven weeks that we've been here in the season, all of it has been great learning opportunities for us, not only in preparing for the opponent, but relative to their roster construction, relative to all of the different things. There's so much to learn from. Whether it was Alabama, whether it was Gonzaga, whether it was Michigan and now it's going to be Virginia, like this has been good. I don't know a lot - you're right. I do think that they play faster than Coach Bennett. I haven't played at Virginia when Coach Bennett wasn't the coach, so that would be a different vibe. I do know Coach Odom and know his dad well. So they are faster, but we have had some experience of playing fast. Michigan is one of the fastest teams in the country. Alabama is super duper fast. So we're going to continue to have - we're going to need our offense to help our defense. We can't give the ball to the other team. That only gives them gas to play even faster. So it's not just transition defense, it's also our offense helping our defense.”

More from Williams on the difference in the second half vs. Michigan

"One difference in the second half that led to their heater, as you mentioned, we turned the ball over eight times in the second half. A lot of our turnovers in the second half, different than the first half, led to transition baskets by them. They're really good in transition, particularly after a live ball turnover. So categorically, we were a lot better throughout the game than we have been in a while with the turnover rate. In the second half, we turned it over too much. When we didn't turn it over, and we did miss. We did shoot it, particularly Diggy shot it really well. We did a great job on offensive glass. It was our highest offensive rebound percentage of the year. We got 40% of our misses. So offensively, we were much better. Defensively, they are really talented, and we do a good job of not giving them offensive rebounds. We did a good job not fouling them, but we gave up too many one-pass threes, some in the full court, some in the half court would be what the difference was in the second half, in my opinion."

On injuries

"I want to be some level of protection for our team, and so I'm not trying to hide anything. I know there's an injury report that comes out three hours before the game, and I understand - so do you - how all of that has come about over the last few years. Solo got hurt on October the sixth, and the next time he practiced was November the 30th, which was the Sunday after we got home from Vegas. And all last week, leading up to the Wagner game and the Iowa game, that was the first time - not because of Solo but because of all of the other injuries - that was the first time we've been able to play five on five in practice. And Iowa was really good and we didn't play great, but we were able to do a lot of the things that a typical team would do in mid-October relative to the install, offensively and defensively. Last week, after the loss at Iowa, we were off on Sunday, and last week, we after one week of good information, home game and road game, and being able to practice five times, playing [five on five], we made some new changes relative to what we wanted to accomplish, and we practiced all week, five on five. And so I think we were markedly better against Michigan, who is the gold standard this season in college basketball. And I thought we did a lot of good stuff, and we made significant progress. Our guys knew it in real time. We have been teaching and talking and showing them clips. And so we were off [Sunday]. We worked this morning in the film room. We will practice [Monday] afternoon. We will not practice five on five. And transparently, Isaiah Watts didn't play as you know, and Willy didn't play last week as you know. And it's not necessarily about who played and who didn't play all the time. Sometimes it's about, did you have enough guys to even practice? And so when Willy and Watts went down last week that put us at ten and so we made some changes, but we were still able to practice with ten. So it's part of it. We have, as a staff, on occasion, been known to complain about the injury bug that we've had, but the schedule is not going to change. The calendar is not going to change. Injury [is] a part of sport. That we have 15 new players and we have not practiced as much, that is not justification for our record but there is some logical explanation on why we are behind in some of the normal it's mid December, sort of things. But our staff has been great and a credit to our kids. They've been incredibly resilient through all of this, and I anticipate, no matter what transpires this week, they will be the same."

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