Men's BBall: My Take on Buzz Williams

My Take on Buzz Williams

...on his hire at Virginia Tech

Positives

Climbed the Coaching Ladder the hard way
Buzz started coaching in 1990 as an assistant at Navarro Community College in Corsicana, Texas. He would then make stops at Oklahoma City University, Texas-Arlington, Texas A&M - Kingsville, Northwestern State, Colorado State, and Texas A&M over the next 16 years. His nickname is a result of his high energy personality from his first coaching gig. It stuck and has carried with him over his entire career.

He finally got his first head coaching opportunity in 2006 at New Orleans, where he would lead the Privateers to a 14-17 (9-9) record. After just one season he would move on to an opportunity as an assistant coach at Marquette to work under Tom Crean. He was only Crean's assistant for one season before Crean left for Indiana. I think this is a good thing as I have not been impressed with Crean as a coach to be honest and neither has Indiana with only two tournament appearances in six years.

Williams took over at Marquette in 2008 and had been happy there until some recent changes in both the competition and the administration that he reported to. Any coach that spends 18 years building up to a big time head coaching job shows me they are dedicated to their craft.

Winning Head Coach
Buzz was 139-69 at Marquette, which is a .668 winning percentage. Overall, its slightly lower with the year at New Orleans. He had won 20+ games in every season at Marquette until this season. He still posted a 17-15 season and never finished worse than .500 in conference play. The most impressive part about this is that he has done this with a Top 25 SOS every season in the old Big East.

He made the NCAA tournament every year until this tournament. That included one elite eight, two sweet sixteen's, and one second round so he obviously knows how to get the team transitioned from Conference Tournament to THE TOURNAMENT and be successful. Marquette declined the CBI this year after not being selected for the NIT.

He is almost worth watching on the sidelines regardless of what team he puts on the floor because of how entertaining his antics have been known to be. You will see him jumping, screaming, pointing, and letting officials have it at every turn but he knows how and when to do it for the most part it seems. He will be something the rest of the ACC doesn't have a lot of in this department. This personality will help with what we have discussed regarding the needed improvements to the department as a whole. He will bring an identity. A Buzz if you will. People are already hashtagging all over twitter, even I am guilty #TeamStinger. He has what it takes to get his players to leave it all on the floor. Marquette before this season was annually a Top 20 school in game attendance. In 2012-2013 they AVERAGED 15,033 fans per game. Need to replace Cassell yet?

He has had two second team AP All Americans and two Honorable Mention AP All Americans in his time at Marquette.

Successful Recruiter
Buzz Williams has been able to bring in top tier talent every year at Marquette. His recruiting classes were 20th in 2014 with three four stars and two three stars, 9th in 2013 with a five star, three four stars and a three star, 71st in 2012 with one four star as the only member of the class, 36th in 2011 with one four star and two three's, 14th in 2010 with one five star, two four stars and three three stars, and 17th in 2009 with three four stars and three three stars. So to summarize for you, Since 2009, Williams has signed:
Five Stars: 2
Four Stars: 10
Three Stars: 11

He also had a verbal commitment from one four star for the class of 2015 already. The thing I appreciate the most about Williams and his current staff is that they recruit Nationally and at least one member of his staff (I have to believe its Jerry Wainwright) has ties to the Virginia area. Wainwright was the head coach at DePaul, Richmond, and UNC-Wilmington in the past. His current roster comes from all over the country, WI, NM, WV, TN, CA, VA, IL, TX and even one from Alaska. This tells me that they identify the talent first that can do what they are trying to do, then they go get them regardless of where they are.

Known For Strong Defensive Play
Buzz's teams are known for playing tight defense, preventing easy transition baskets, and in your face half court defense. His teams are regularly Top 50 in several key defensive statistics, such as Field Goal Percentage Defense, Assist to Turnover Ratio, and Three Point Field Goal Percentage Defense.

Community Guy
Everywhere you look on the internet, there is another story about a good deed that Williams has helped make happen. He is very active in the community and very cognizant to appearances and seems to be genuinely considerate of most folks (No Greenberg repeats). "Buzz's Bunch" allowed special needs children to experience basketball. I would reference how fast from the time the decision was made to how up to date his social media, phones and other information was that he was committed to coming to Blacksburg. Even his Wikipedia page has been updated to show Virginia Tech for next season, although with Wiki, anyone could have done that. All of these are good signs.

The thing I read about his community involvement that I want to see come to Tech the most is that he has for five straight years held Buzz's BBQ. Its a fan extravaganza coupled with large quantities of BBQ. What more could you ask for? These are the kinds of things that will keep basketball at the front of fans minds year round.

Academics
I cant find much information on his pushing athletics like there was on JJ but their media guide says that 34 of 38 players since 2000 that have completed their eligibility will have graduated. It appears that at least 18 of those graduates were under Buzz's watch.

He Left the Right Way
Apparently the deal was in place early enough for him to tell his team before any news of the hire made the press. After the debacle of Randy Edsall leaving Connecticut, I really appreciate when I know a coach didn't just leave his team in the lurch to face the press blindsided.

Challenges

Challenges? We don't have no stinkin challenges....

Experience
Buzz, even with his stellar record, will come into the ACC with the fewest number of games as a head coach (Coaching changes still going on at Boston College and Wake Forest cant be accounted for) and a winning percentage currently on the low end of the pack at .635 over his 239 games coached. The average career winning percentage of ACC coaches right now is .675, led by Roy Williams with a .793. He is just above Brownell at Clemson and below Gottfried at NCSU. The next fewest games coached in a career in the ACC right now is Tony Bennett with 264. After that the experience goes up significantly. Eight coaches have over 500 games as a head coach. What does all this mean? It could mean absolutely nothing. If Buzz is able to recruit in top talent he will continue to compete. He spent almost his entire time at Marquette going up against Boeheim, Pitino, Dixon and Brey. He didn't always beat them but he held his own.

Conference Success
This kind of continues part of the conversation about experience. Buzz as a member of the Big East tied for first once, was second another year, but was also 5th twice and 9th once. Will we as Hokies take that every year? Absolutely, as 9th place in the Big East then was middle of the conference. I just want to temper expectations as he did that against half the coaching legends he will face now. We could see that slip a few spots. I don't however expect it to ever be where we were the last two years.

Working Relationship
I feel much better about this one after reading about all the challenges he was dealing with outside and internal to Marquette. My first reaction was to worry that a coach getting paid $2.8 million a year being unhappy with the administration could be another Greenberg situation in the making, not necessarily the way it was handled but just the back and forth between coach and other employees. I don't expect this to be the case but the type of personality that makes him such a great person to have now can be the worst type to deal with if we make him unhappy. I hope that Whit underpromised Buzz on what will happen with the program and will overdeliver, kind of like he did with this hire for us as fans.

Early Transition
The transition defense that Buzz likes to employ as part of his coaching strategy could be difficult for the current roster as its built to handle. I am sure that he will find the best way to utilize the team he has available but we could still be in for a couple rough seasons in the next two years until Buzz gets a chance to bring in his type of recruits and work his system. We only graduate two players next year that are on scholarship. Not sure how they are handling Rankin's scholarship either, but the most he could transition in of his own guys would be three over the first two years he is here. Three can still have a big impact.

Coaching Staff Transition
I think that it is critical for Buzz to convince Jerry Wainwright and Isaac Chew to come with him to Tech. Wainwright will be a great asset to introduce Buzz to the current coaches in Virginia and North Carolina. Chew though is given most of the credit when it comes to the Top 10 ranked class in 2013. Jeff Reynolds, his current Director of Basketball Operations also has significant ties to Virginia and North Carolina as well, being an alma mater of UNC-G, and having coached at UNC-G, UNC-W, JMU, Randolph-Macon, NC Wesleyan, Winthrop, and Wingate. Brad Autry is the only member of the staff that doesn't immediately jump out at me as a must have. I think keeping his staff in tact with the seniority it has and connections it provides could be critical in shortening the window for Tech to compete.

Not that he needs it or that it matters, but I give the Buzz Williams hire a huge approval now that I have had the time to really look into it. I really hope it works out as I believe he can be the basketball equivalent of Frank Beamer if allowed to get the program where it needs to be. #TeamVTWhitnesses #TeamStinger

Both Loveable, Both Affable, but only one will be wearing our Orange and Maroon

Here is just a summary of his profile.
Years as Head Coach: 7 Years (Marquette, New Orleans)
Record: 153-86 (78-49)
Last Four Years: 92-47 (46-27)
Current: 17-15 (9-9)
Years Coaching: 24 Years (Navarro CC, Oklahoma City, Texas-Arlington, Texas A&M Kingsville, Northwestern State, Colorado State, Texas A&M, New Orleans, Marquette)
Played at College/Pro Level: None
Tournament: 5 NCAA (1 Elite Eight)
Recruiting Focus: His focus seems to be the traditional basketball setup. Smaller, fast guards, lanky swing players for the small forward and big solid players for the four and five positions.
Basketball style/info:
Offense: Williams focuses his offense on hard lane play by his big men. He expects all of his lane players to be able to create a shot once catching the ball with their back to the basket. This requires finding big men with the ball handling skills to be trusted to put it on the floor and guards capable of the outside shot to prevent teams from crashing the lane.
Defense: Williams uses quite a few zone sets to force opponents to take bad shots. It requires his guards to be extremely quick to the open man and transition well on screens. His other focus is playing transition defense to prevent easy fast break points for the