Buzz Williams' Unique Demeanor on Full Display at Tech's Basketball Media Day

It's easy to get caught up in the myth of Buzz Williams.

Surely, no mere college basketball coach could live up to Williams' oversized reputation as a charitable and big-hearted, yet insanely obsessive, leader of a program.

But when you hear the way he talks about something as simple as his first practices with the Hokies at Tech's preseason media day, it's a little easier to believe in all the hype.

"I told them (Sunday) 'whoever raised you, you should tell them thank you, because they did an incredible job,'" Williams said. "Part of my ego gets in the way as a coach, because I want to say 'no, this is how you're supposed to play,' but then what happens is my heart gets in the way sometimes. Because if any of those kids were my son, I'd want to give him the best chance for him to have success. I'm not saying we'll have it, but these kids are so good to be around, so fun to be around that I want to give them the best chance."

There's no doubt that he brings a different personality to the program, after the days of the reserved James Johnson and the acerbic Seth Greenberg.

Yet he also brings a very different philosophy about how to construct a system, and it would seem he's prepared to take his time implementing it.

"Do you want to teach kids plays or do you want to teach kids how to play?" Williams said. "I want to teach kids how to play because if those five freshmen can grow and improve and mature and their bodies and games change and there's an evolution involved, two years from now it's a completely different media day, so long as we're supplementing them as they grow up.

"But if you're just teaching kids plays, they're probably going to be better in November and December, but by the time you get to January and February, everybody knows your plays. So you need to teach them how to play and that takes a longer period of time, and there's going to be hiccups along the way because I'm not going to teach them plays."

But while Williams won't be stressing the nitty-gritty details of which plays the Hokies will be running, he seems to have devoted his vaunted obsessive tendencies toward figuring out the Hokies' best style of play.

"I've studied it for a long time, I've studied it since June. So with every passing day I get a little better feel for what their best skill set is," Williams said. "And we're not big, so it's not like we're going to be a smashmouth team, so we've got to figure out what gives each of those guys the best opportunity to do what they do best and mesh all of those together."

Even if he hasn't hammered out the details quite yet, Williams can tell that speed will be a crucial element for the team to compensate for the fact that they only have one seven-footer on the roster.

"We need to play with space offensively, and we need to shrink the floor defensively," Williams said. "We're not very big, so defensively we need to keep the ball out of the paint, and offensively we've got to play with such space that teams have trouble covering all of that space and use that lack of size to our advantage."

While the roster does look wildly different than it did a season ago, this dearth of size is nothing new. But Williams seems particularly committed to adapting to this deficiency instead of just downplaying it.

"We can't just sit around and say 'well, we're not big enough,' everybody knows that," Williams said. "So we need to turn that to a strength instead of a liability."

Williams isn't completely unaccustomed to working with small teams, but it's also not the traditional way he's constructed his rosters. He points to his third year at Marquette in 2011 as the one time in his career that he fielded such a diminutive team.

"I think our tallest starter was 6'5" and he started at the five," Williams said. "But we're probably playing a lot faster today than we were then, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that I think we have a lot of guys that can space you out, just because they can shoot it so well. But we've got to get them the ball at the right time and at the right spot for that space to be effective."

The new head Hokie also stressed that the offense will give the players the ownership they need to feel comfortable.

"Philosophically, I want them to have freedom that within this style of play, if you do this, then it can lead to that. And if you do that, it leads to that," Williams said. "And I think when kids feel as though you're giving them ownership and they feel trust in how you're teaching and how you're coaching, then that creates more buy in, but that buy in takes a longer period of time."

Williams started the process of creating that trust this past weekend, when the Hokies hit the road for training camp. The team had a pair of practices on Friday and Saturday and a final one Sunday afternoon.

"How we started on Friday, they were trying to do right and it looked like a circus," Williams said. "But by (Sunday) at 4 o'clock, it kind of looked like we knew what we were doing and they were really enjoying it. I was too, to be honest with you. So hopefully over the next week or so we can continue to fine tune it."

The veteran players agree that there were some initial bumps, but none that were completely unexpected.

"Obviously, you have some practices where you're learning the new system and things are rough, but for the most part, they went pretty well," said sophomore guard Devin Wilson.

There was a similar consensus that Williams' energy is unlike anything they've seen before.

"That's why he got the nickname Buzz, he brings a lot of energy," said redshirt junior guard Adam Smith. "Everybody's just excited to get started."

Williams is expecting the players to show plenty of energy in practice as well as they prepare to up the tempo.

"I think everybody here is probably in the best shape we've been in in a long time," said redshirt junior forward Joey van Zegeren. "It's a lot of running, we're getting up and down the floor, we're talking a lot, so I'm really glad about all that."

But the players don't seem to mind the demanding practices given the instant camaraderie they seem to have discovered.

"I think that's the most amazing thing thus far," Smith said. "We were already pretty close, the veterans, but the freshmen came in right away and gelled, so it's a really family atmosphere. Same thing with the staff. They all came in and we all just embraced each other."

That's resulted in rave reviews from some members of the squad.

"This is one of the closest teams I think I've ever been on," Wilson said. "We hang out together all the time, we go out together, we hang out at our houses together, so we're definitely close as a team."

Williams has observed this seemingly instant bond as well.

"The guys are as good as I've been around in regards to their cohesiveness," Williams said.

But Williams doesn't want to test these good vibes by overworking the team. He notes that he starts practice a little later than some of his contemporaries in an effort to avoid overwhelming his players with his exuberance.

"Because of how I coach, I do not want to coach from the last weekend in September to after spring break, if we're any good," Williams said. "I don't want to do that, and nobody in our group wants me to do that. I think one of the reasons we've had success is that our guys still hear me after Valentine's Day."

Yet the notion of the team playing relevant basketball games by the time the calendar turns to February is likely a longshot for such a young team, but the ever-upbeat Williams is choosing to focus on the future.

"Other than our youth, there's nothing to complain about, and I'm not so sure that our youth won't end up being an asset as time goes by," Williams said.

If Williams truly can end up turning this youthful squad, with only two seniors on the whole roster, into something special, then the myths surrounding him will be entirely justified.