Texas A&M hires Virginia Tech's Buzz Williams as head basketball coach

Buzz Williams, whose motto is simply “Get Better,” has been offered and accepted the position as Texas A&M’s basketball coach. Texas A&M made the move official in a release Wednesday morning, and Williams will be introduced at a public event at Reed Arena at 4 p.m. on Thursday.

Williams, 46, will attempt to better an A&M program that finished 14-18 last season and has been left out of the NCAA Tournament in six of the last eight seasons under coach Billy Kennedy. 

“I am so humbled and honored to return home to Texas A&M, and proud to lead the Aggies,” Williams said in the release. “I’d like to thank Chancellor Sharp, President Young and Scott Woodward for this incredible opportunity. This is our home, and we are ready to join with the 12th Man to win championships, graduate our players and represent this world-class university with integrity.”

In 12 seasons as a head coach at New Orleans, Marquette and Virginia Tech, Williams has produced a 253-155 record. His teams have appeared in the NCAA Tournament eight times. Four have reached at least the Sweet Sixteen and one reached the Elite Eight.

“As we began our search, it quickly reaffirmed to us what we all know—the A&M brand is powerful, as the depth and breadth of the candidate pool was incredible,” A&M AD Scott Woodward added in the release. “We kept our focus on finding an elite basketball coach, a developer of talent, a tremendous recruiter, a tireless worker and someone who fits Texas A&M. Buzz Williams is all that and more. I have no doubt that Buzz will take our basketball program further than ever before and will make Aggies everywhere proud. It is an exciting day as we welcome Buzz and his family back to Aggieland.”

Terms of Williams’ deal are not yet clear. However, he was the 21st highest paid college basketball at Virginia Tech. The Hokies paid Williams $3 million per season with maximum bonuses of up to $290,000.

Born in Greenville and raised in Van Alstyne, Texas, Williams was an assistant coach at Texas A&M under Billy Gillispie in 2004-06. He recruited, among others, All-Big 12 selections Donald Sloan and Bryan Davis, who both scored more than 1,000 points in their collegiate careers.

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Williams led the Hokies to the Sweet Sixteen where only a missed tip-in kept them from taking No. 1 Duke to overtime.

He left A&M following the 2006 season in which the Aggies were 22-9 and reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament where they fell to LSU 58-57 on a last second 3-point shot.

He spent the next season at the University of New Orleans and finished 14-17. After that season, he left New Orleans to join Tom Crean’s staff at Marquette in 2007.

After Marquette finished 25-10 and reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament, Crean resigned to take the head coach position at Indiana.

Williams then replaced Crean and led Marquette to five consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances and posted a 139-69 record in six seasons.

Under Williams, Marquette was 22-15 and reached the Sweet Sixteen in 2011 and then went 27-8 and returned to the Sweet Sixteen in 2012.

The next season Marquette went 26-9 and defeated Davidson, 59-58, and Butler, 74-72, in the first two NCAA Tournament games to reach the Sweet Sixteen for the third straight year.

The Golden Eagles then defeated Miami, 71-61, to advance to the Elite Eight where they lost to Syracuse. That was the farthest Marquette had advanced since winning the 1977 national championship under Al McGuire.

Two years later, Williams accepted the head coaching position at Virginia Tech, a move which surprised some because Tech had been a lower-division program in the powerful Atlantic Coast Conference. The Hokies Tech had made only eight NCAA Tournament appearances in program history and only one since 1996.

Further, the Hokies had endured three consecutive losing seasons under Seth Greenberg and James Johnson and were 9-22 in the 2013-14 season.

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Williams spent the last five years in the ACC competing with some of the game’s best ever coaches, including UNC’s Roy Williams.

They finished just 11-22 in Williams’ first year in Blacksburg, but went 15-16 and were in the National Invitational Tournament field in his second season.

In 2017 Virginia Tech went 22-11 and made the first of three consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances.

This season the 16th-ranked Hokies finished 12-6 in the rugged ACC, good for fifth place behind top-ranked Duke, No. 2 ranked Virginia, No. 3 North Carolina and No. 10 Florida State.

Tech held form in the postseason, advancing to the Sweet Sixteen with a smothering first round win over St. Louis and by beating upset-minded Liberty, who had knocked off fifth-seeded Mississippi State in their opening game. The Hokies then went toe-to-toe with top overall seed Duke on Friday night, leading much of the game before ultimately falling 75-73 after missing a shot at the rim to tie as time expired.

Obviously, under Williams Virginia Tech “got better.”

Texas A&M is counting on doing that, too.

TexAgs Premium subscribers can read more coverage of A&M’s hire of Williams, including thoughts from TexAgs basketball analyst Logan Lee, who played under Williams as an Aggie.