If this same lineup were coached by say Pearl, Calipari, Barnes, or Scherer, etc what would our record look like right now? What could one these coaches do with this group? Trying to see if this group is what it is or it it's an x's and o's thing. The floor is open for discussion.

Well, not all our players for sure.
Buzz has a player profile he likes: hard-working, scrappy, hustling, defensive minded, good-kids…

Buzz is a 2-time SEC coach of the year and a really good guy. But, he's not offensive minded. We never have multiple guys that can flat out score, or several sharp shooters in the same line-up. We always struggle to score. In fact, we typically are mediocre to poor in offensive efficiency. Heck, over his tenure, I don't remember ever being an above average Free Throw shooting team… those should be automatic.

Buzz doesn't even recruit 5-star players. I'll say again, he's a really good guy, an excellent role model to kids. But, unless his recruiting and mindset changes and we can score more efficiently (and still play defense) what we've seen is what we'll get.

Buzz wants to win in a different way.

Either because he's just quirky like that and wants to prove it, or because he's convinced himself he can never compete with the other schools recruiting pure shooters so this is his only avenue.

You can even make a case that his loyalty to guys that are replacement level potentially helps with recruiting players who seek out that "loyalty-first" kind of coach.

IMO he's fallen too much in love with the analytics of our "offensive efficiency" and decided that is not just our best way to win but our only way to win (getting the ball on the rim and crashing the boards), and we're too far into the season to change our approach.

Muy said:

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I don't get this "Buzz recruits good kids" excuse. Do all of the better teams win because they recruit bad kids? Is that the hill we're going to die on to defend Buzz?

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I don't think anyone's defending it, just describing it.

Proposition Joe said:

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Muy said:

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I don't get this "Buzz recruits good kids" excuse. Do all of the better teams win because they recruit bad kids? Is that the hill we're going to die on to defend Buzz?

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I don't think anyone's defending it, just describing it.

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It shouldn't even be a factor in discussing Buzz as it's not unique to him.

Muy said:

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I don't get this "Buzz recruits good kids" excuse. Do all of the better teams win because they recruit bad kids? Is that the hill we're going to die on to defend Buzz?

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I'm not using "Buzz recruits good kids" as an excuse or defending Buzz at all. I like Buzz, but I'm really tired of the product we're seeing and the results. It kills me that we struggle so much offensively. And if we can't make free throws, we'll never go far in the tournament. But, I don't know who we could attract to A&M to do better. Our fan base doesn't support men's basketball very well; we think we're a football school, lol.

Whaler said:

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Muy said:

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I don't get this "Buzz recruits good kids" excuse. Do all of the better teams win because they recruit bad kids? Is that the hill we're going to die on to defend Buzz?

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I'm not using "Buzz recruits good kids" as an excuse or defending Buzz at all. I like Buzz, but I'm really tired of the product we're seeing and the results. It kills me that we struggle so much offensively. And if we can't make free throws, we'll never go far in the tournament. But, I don't know who we could attract to A&M to do better. Our fan base doesn't support men's basketball very well; we think we're a football school, lol.

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Agreed, and wish that would change. Hell, we even put our students in the corner and behind the basket (yes I know schools have kids behind the basket) while having olds like me having the best seats and sit on their ass the whole game while making sure their grandkids are having fun. Are we the only top 20 team that you don't see the students behind the benches standing up and raising hell?

Muy said:

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Proposition Joe said:

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Muy said:

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I don't get this "Buzz recruits good kids" excuse. Do all of the better teams win because they recruit bad kids? Is that the hill we're going to die on to defend Buzz?

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I don't think anyone's defending it, just describing it.

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It shouldn't even be a factor in discussing Buzz as it's not unique to him.

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It's not being posted necessarily as a positive attribute to Buzz compared to other coaches (eg. "yeah well our coach recruits good kids!").

It's pointing out something that is simply a part of what kind of kid he likes to go after.

Muy said:

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Agreed, and wish that would change. Hell, we even put our students in the corner and behind the basket (yes I know schools have kids behind the basket) while having olds like me having the best seats and sit on their ass the whole game while making sure their grandkids are having fun. Are we the only top 20 team that you don't see the students behind the benches standing up and raising hell?

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If A&M did this the arena would look wayyy more empty than it already does cause their is no fan support. Student sections are ghost towns for basketball.

I totally get what you're saying and will drop it. My point being winning teams don't focus on that, they just win.

FTAG 2000 said:

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polander ag81 said:

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If this same lineup were coached by say Pearl, Calipari, Barnes, or Scherer, etc what would our record look like right now? What could one these coaches do with this group? Trying to see if this group is what it is or it it's an x's and o's thing. The floor is open for discussion.

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Three of our rotational guys wouldn't even be on the team under those guys but they hustle, write great thank you notes, and speed read books like no other so they are still here.

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Amen. If you play like a spot up shooter, but you can't spot up shoot.. You are not a major D1 player, sorry. But here we are are in year 3-4 of a couple guys that fit that profile and play a ton.

Muy said:

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I totally get what you're saying and will drop it. My point being winning teams don't focus on that, they just win.

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Preaching to the choir. A lot I love about Buzz, but Hefner being a 5 year player averaging 10+ minutes a game shows how much Buzz cares about just winning basketball games.

Best case you can make is that his loyalty wins over some recruits/transfers that maybe we wouldn't have been able to get otherwise. But... yeah.

Aston04 said:

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FTAG 2000 said:

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polander ag81 said:

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If this same lineup were coached by say Pearl, Calipari, Barnes, or Scherer, etc what would our record look like right now? What could one these coaches do with this group? Trying to see if this group is what it is or it it's an x's and o's thing. The floor is open for discussion.

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Three of our rotational guys wouldn't even be on the team under those guys but they hustle, write great thank you notes, and speed read books like no other so they are still here.

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Amen. If you play like a spot up shooter, but you can't spot up shoot.. You are not a major D1 player, sorry. But here we are are in year 3-4 of a couple guys that fit that profile and play a ton.

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I think simply looking out the shooting %'s of players year-over-year, especially players that had previously shown an ability to put the ball in the hoop... there's a strong case to be made that Buzz' offense approach has literally coached the accuracy out of them.

I know dead horse, but I come back to Flagg and how absolutely out of place, square-peg-round-hole he looked in Buzz offense.

And you have a fair point when thinking about Carter. He was a scorer before coming here. Not same level of competition (MO Valley), but not bad.

Muy said:

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I don't get this "Buzz recruits good kids" excuse. Do all of the better teams win because they recruit bad kids? Is that the hill we're going to die on to defend Buzz?

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you tell me:

https://texags.com/s/65353/behind-the-number-manny-obaseki-using-platform-to-share-his-faith/7

Manny is extremely talented athletically. But more than that he is a good kid. I can't tell you if he was completely like that when Buzz recruited him, but if Buzz is consistently building players into men that think like this, the answer to your question is crystal clear.

I can't fault him if he can make the Dance annually and every third or fourth year go to the S16 or further. You'll get there if he does that because it will draw moms especially to send their sons here.

Whaler said:

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Muy said:

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I don't get this "Buzz recruits good kids" excuse. Do all of the better teams win because they recruit bad kids? Is that the hill we're going to die on to defend Buzz?

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I'm not using "Buzz recruits good kids" as an excuse or defending Buzz at all. I like Buzz, but I'm really tired of the product we're seeing and the results. It kills me that we struggle so much offensively. And if we can't make free throws, we'll never go far in the tournament. But, I don't know who we could attract to A&M to do better. Our fan base doesn't support men's basketball very well; we think we're a football school, lol.

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Can we let the season play out first before we make judgment?

greg.w.h said:

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Muy said:

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I don't get this "Buzz recruits good kids" excuse. Do all of the better teams win because they recruit bad kids? Is that the hill we're going to die on to defend Buzz?

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you tell me:

https://texags.com/s/65353/behind-the-number-manny-obaseki-using-platform-to-share-his-faith/7

Manny is extremely talented athletically. But more than that he is a good kid. I can't tell you if he was completely like that when Buzz recruited him, but if Buzz is consistently building players into men that think like this, the answer to your question is crystal clear.

I can't fault him if he can make the Dance annually and every third or fourth year go to the S16 or further. You'll get there if he does that because it will draw moms especially to send their sons here.

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I love manny and he's very athletic. But he hasn't scored in 4 games. He's dying on the vine and has not developed despite some good flashes. I would think moms would not be eager to sign up for that.

Look at player stats. None of the players have really gotten better over their careers statistically while here at A&M. They are either a flat line, or peak 1 year, and then decrease.

Buzz recruits character first, talent second. He's looking past their college careers and wants to develop men.

That's great and all, but it doesn't win you basketball games.

Some of you are focused on the wrong things here. Sure he recruits good kids, sure he's loyal to the kids, our kids graduate and I'm also sure that the kids would run through a wall for Buzz. We really have 4 of what I'd consider the most important traits in a head coach.

These are all good things and reasons I like Buzz, and not reasons why we see what we see on the court.

The difference here, and the coaching part of the equation that makes no sense is that Buzz does not put these kids in a position to succeed consistently by running a structured offense. Instead Manny, Wade and Zhu take turns trying to get theirs, and if that doesn't work they drop a grenade on Andy, Solo or Hef. In some cases we try to get the ball down low, but if you watch us do even this, our posts usually get the ball 18 feet from the cup and have to then basically win a one on one battle to score. Everything we do on offense makes the game harder on the guys we have. I assume that in a vacuum each dude on our team would look much better offensively with a coach that would ID their strengths and then play to those consistently.

IF we had a really good offensive strategy we'd take advantage of what we have. Solo would sit in the dunker spot and wouldn't move off it, penetration and dish so he can take two steps and dunk. That's his game, so highlight it. He should never catch the ball at the 3-point line and attack because it's not a thing he can do. He'd score 10 a game easy though if we put him in positions where he could excel.

Hef or Wilcher should sit in the opposite corner from the dunker spot and shouldn't move, drive, dish, swing the ball and they'd get 5-7 open looks a game standing still in the corner. Read the rotation and make the right pass.

With Payne, he's good enough offensively, that we should be running pick and roll to force a switch 10+ times a game, then you immediately dump and the defense likely has to double, swing, swing, open look. It's not rocket science, and if they don't double, you let Payne cook on a guard until they do double. If you see they fight screens too hard on the pick and roll, he slips it and you hit him for an easy dunk/dump off to Solo in the dunker spot.

Once you prove to teams that YOU can get any look you want against their defense, the whole court opens up for everyone and the game is just so much easier offensively. Guys like Manny look lost because there is no plan offensively. By year 3/4 in a system, they should be like robots reading a defense and making the immediate read to find their teammates based on the reaction of the defense to our attack.

If you go back and listen to Lanier's post game comments after he torched us, he said "we knew exactly how they'd react to everything we were going to do on offense." The Tennessee players were making deliberate moves against our defense to move our eyes, then our rotations before snapping it back to Lanier for the looks they wanted. We just don't do that at all. 3 assists in an entire game on 23 made baskets should be IMPOSSIBLE, but yet we just did it.

When we beat Texas 46-43 on "The Shot" we had 13 assists on 17 made baskets. (Acie's final shot wasn't assisted on) BCG took a team with basically no talent and ran an offense that put guys in a position to make the game easy. There was extreme structure to how we approached the offensive end and we got the shots we wanted. BCG teams were just as high character as these are. You can still run offense with "good kids." Against Texas that year in the Big XII championship game, we had 19 assists on 26 made baskets. BCG was enough of a wizard that he made Acie look like a lottery pick even though that kid did not have NBA talent.

So for those saying that the excuse is "he recruits good kids who suck at basketball" that's crap. All these kids can play, they are just being forced to take tough shots and play ball in the most difficult way possible.

TheDecadeSapling said:

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Buzz recruits character first, talent second. He's looking past their college careers and wants to develop men.

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Don't forget can't hit the broad dude of a barn.

AggieEP said:

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Some of you are focused on the wrong things here. Sure he recruits good kids, sure he's loyal to the kids, our kids graduate and I'm also sure that the kids would run through a wall for Buzz. We really have 4 of what I'd consider the most important traits in a head coach.

These are all good things and reasons I like Buzz, and not reasons why we see what we see on the court.

The difference here, and the coaching part of the equation that makes no sense is that Buzz does not put these kids in a position to succeed consistently by running a structured offense. Instead Manny, Wade and Zhu take turns trying to get theirs, and if that doesn't work they drop a grenade on Andy, Solo or Hef. In some cases we try to get the ball down low, but if you watch us do even this, our posts usually get the ball 18 feet from the cup and have to then basically win a one on one battle to score. Everything we do on offense makes the game harder on the guys we have. I assume that in a vacuum each dude on our team would look much better offensively with a coach that would ID their strengths and then play to those consistently.

IF we had a really good offensive strategy we'd take advantage of what we have. Solo would sit in the dunker spot and wouldn't move off it, penetration and dish so he can take two steps and dunk. That's his game, so highlight it. He should never catch the ball at the 3-point line and attack because it's not a thing he can do. He'd score 10 a game easy though if we put him in positions where he could excel.

Hef or Wilcher should sit in the opposite corner from the dunker spot and shouldn't move, drive, dish, swing the ball and they'd get 5-7 open looks a game standing still in the corner. Read the rotation and make the right pass.

With Payne, he's good enough offensively, that we should be running pick and roll to force a switch 10+ times a game, then you immediately dump and the defense likely has to double, swing, swing, open look. It's not rocket science, and if they don't double, you let Payne cook on a guard until they do double. If you see they fight screens too hard on the pick and roll, he slips it and you hit him for an easy dunk/dump off to Solo in the dunker spot.

Once you prove to teams that YOU can get any look you want against their defense, the whole court opens up for everyone and the game is just so much easier offensively. Guys like Manny look lost because there is no plan offensively. By year 3/4 in a system, they should be like robots reading a defense and making the immediate read to find their teammates based on the reaction of the defense to our attack.

If you go back and listen to Lanier's post game comments after he torched us, he said "we knew exactly how they'd react to everything we were going to do on offense." The Tennessee players were making deliberate moves against our defense to move our eyes, then our rotations before snapping it back to Lanier for the looks they wanted. We just don't do that at all. 3 assists in an entire game on 23 made baskets should be IMPOSSIBLE, but yet we just did it.

When we beat Texas 46-43 on "The Shot" we had 13 assists on 17 made baskets. (Acie's final shot wasn't assisted on) BCG took a team with basically no talent and ran an offense that put guys in a position to make the game easy. There was extreme structure to how we approached the offensive end and we got the shots we wanted. BCG teams were just as high character as these are. You can still run offense with "good kids." Against Texas that year in the Big XII championship game, we had 19 assists on 26 made baskets. BCG was enough of a wizard that he made Acie look like a lottery pick even though that kid did not have NBA talent.

So for those saying that the excuse is "he recruits good kids who suck at basketball" that's crap. All these kids can play, they are just being forced to take tough shots and play ball in the most difficult way possible.

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This all makes too much sense but people don't believe we could run pick and roll with Payne.

AggieEP said:

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Some of you are focused on the wrong things here. Sure he recruits good kids, sure he's loyal to the kids, our kids graduate and I'm also sure that the kids would run through a wall for Buzz. We really have 4 of what I'd consider the most important traits in a head coach.

These are all good things and reasons I like Buzz, and not reasons why we see what we see on the court.

The difference here, and the coaching part of the equation that makes no sense is that Buzz does not put these kids in a position to succeed consistently by running a structured offense. Instead Manny, Wade and Zhu take turns trying to get theirs, and if that doesn't work they drop a grenade on Andy, Solo or Hef. In some cases we try to get the ball down low, but if you watch us do even this, our posts usually get the ball 18 feet from the cup and have to then basically win a one on one battle to score. Everything we do on offense makes the game harder on the guys we have. I assume that in a vacuum each dude on our team would look much better offensively with a coach that would ID their strengths and then play to those consistently.

IF we had a really good offensive strategy we'd take advantage of what we have. Solo would sit in the dunker spot and wouldn't move off it, penetration and dish so he can take two steps and dunk. That's his game, so highlight it. He should never catch the ball at the 3-point line and attack because it's not a thing he can do. He'd score 10 a game easy though if we put him in positions where he could excel.

Hef or Wilcher should sit in the opposite corner from the dunker spot and shouldn't move, drive, dish, swing the ball and they'd get 5-7 open looks a game standing still in the corner. Read the rotation and make the right pass.

With Payne, he's good enough offensively, that we should be running pick and roll to force a switch 10+ times a game, then you immediately dump and the defense likely has to double, swing, swing, open look. It's not rocket science, and if they don't double, you let Payne cook on a guard until they do double. If you see they fight screens too hard on the pick and roll, he slips it and you hit him for an easy dunk/dump off to Solo in the dunker spot.

Once you prove to teams that YOU can get any look you want against their defense, the whole court opens up for everyone and the game is just so much easier offensively. Guys like Manny look lost because there is no plan offensively. By year 3/4 in a system, they should be like robots reading a defense and making the immediate read to find their teammates based on the reaction of the defense to our attack.

If you go back and listen to Lanier's post game comments after he torched us, he said "we knew exactly how they'd react to everything we were going to do on offense." The Tennessee players were making deliberate moves against our defense to move our eyes, then our rotations before snapping it back to Lanier for the looks they wanted. We just don't do that at all. 3 assists in an entire game on 23 made baskets should be IMPOSSIBLE, but yet we just did it.

When we beat Texas 46-43 on "The Shot" we had 13 assists on 17 made baskets. (Acie's final shot wasn't assisted on) BCG took a team with basically no talent and ran an offense that put guys in a position to make the game easy. There was extreme structure to how we approached the offensive end and we got the shots we wanted. BCG teams were just as high character as these are. You can still run offense with "good kids." Against Texas that year in the Big XII championship game, we had 19 assists on 26 made baskets. BCG was enough of a wizard that he made Acie look like a lottery pick even though that kid did not have NBA talent.

So for those saying that the excuse is "he recruits good kids who suck at basketball" that's crap. All these kids can play, they are just being forced to take tough shots and play ball in the most difficult way possible.

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Absolutely spot on. The actual scheme and in game coaching are bottom of the barrel.

It seems like the only thing we practice Is rebounding.

zooguy96 said:

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It seems like the only thing we practice Is rebounding.

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Half the practice is diving on the floor for the 2 times a game that we even get the chance.

TheDecadeSapling said:

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Buzz recruits character first, talent second. He's looking past their college careers and wants to develop men.

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Buzz has had a player kicked off for sexual assault and another caught shoplifting.

To add to this, teams have also adjusted by being extremely physical with us. We have been the soft team for the last 4 games letting the other team absolutely bully us. Then you look at us on defense, and we willingly give up space and invite their players to drive the lane thinking we're going to trap them. All they do is make two passes and its game over. Nobody on their team ever gets uncomfortable. Shooters are all in rhythm and gain confidence throughout the game. Nothing is done to change that.

Every single coach who is interviewed talks about how great his players are off the court, and what great character and young men are on the team. And about CULTURE. Those two things are not unique to Buzz Williams, so please quit saying it.

Method Man said:

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TheDecadeSapling said:

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Buzz recruits character first, talent second. He's looking past their college careers and wants to develop men.

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Buzz has had a player kicked off for sexual assault and another caught shoplifting.

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Who was shoplifting?