Buzz Williams is on the brink of making Virginia Tech as relevant as they've ever been
This is what Buzz Williams does. He identifies talent among the overlooked or under-recruited, he coaches them up and he gets them to feel the weight of the chip on their shoulder, and the end product is a team where the whole is better than the sum of the parts. Remember, this is the coach that shuttled Wes Matthews, Jae Crowder and Jimmy Butler from relative obscurity through Marquette and on to the NBA.
"They've got a way they want to play," an ACC coach told NBCSports.com of the Hokies. "They're the best team in the country at getting fouled. The paint touches, relentlessly driving the ball. Typical Buzz. He's a great coach, and credit to him because he can look at his team and figure out how he can have success with this group."
If there's a surprise here, it's that the Hokies are having this much success this early, because no one should be surprised that Williams was able to get the Hokies rolling. That was always going to happen, but in year two? I don't know how many people would have predicted that, by 2016, Virginia Tech would be on the brink of national relevance for the first time since ... 2007, their last tournament appearance?
Comments
Sounds pretty similar to what they used to say about beamer, finding those overlooked players and coaching them up well. That works to some degree but you need to get the blue chippers going as well to really reach the top. Good read though.
If you build it, (they) will come
Sounds pretty similar to what they say about Fuente
It's much easier to get blue chip recruits in basketball though.
How do you figure? Kentucky UNC Duke and Kansas get all the one and done blue chip guys everyone else gets practically none
LSU, Cal, and Maryland (this year alone) would beg to differ.
I see Fran Frascilla is tweeting that Buzz is likely to leave. He states in one of his tweets that Buzz is likely to believe that Tech can never be in the top echelon of ACC. You, sir, are a damn fool.
I'd be shocked if the anonymous coach wasn't Mike Brey.
Or Pitino. Or Bennett. Or Boeheim.
All coaches who lauded Buzz this year with similar statements.
The backhanded compliment game is strong with this one.
And people wonder why I really don't like living in Raleigh during basketball season....
IT'S VADER TIME!! (Ric Flair with a great WOO there in the background too)
But we did beat UVA, So
Love the attitude. Me as a fan? Super pumped to have made the NIT. Glad to see the team isn't satisfied though.
Even though I'm excited to see how this team does in the NIT, the tournament results have proven not to have too much impact on next year's results. However, I believe for a team this young (we return virtually every contributing player), having these single knock-out type games are very valuable for our team.
It's kind of like the bowl game analogy. Win or lose might not mean much for next season, but those extra practices do help a whole lot with team development.
If they keep grinding, like they have been, the future is very bright for this team.
Where is the freaking audio playing in that link?
So let's say he does leave after this year...does anyone wish that we didn't go on a winning streak late in the season? It has to be pondered, essentially IMO if the team doesn't catch fire and start rolling late, would this even be a discussion?
Nope. If he leaves because we are winning, it sets us up for another good coach who sees it can be done here. If we lose even with Buzz, we are forever a basement dweller in the eyes of many.
I guess what I meant was, say we don't finish 7th or technically 6th in the ACC an we finish 10th. Or even if we started out hot in ACC play, we cooled off and backed our way into the NIT. Still conceivably better than most thought, trajectory still up for the program, maybe Buzz isn't receiving phone calls for his services as much at the end of this year? It's just funny how things work out.
Only if the players don't leave with him. If Buzz leaves and our team vaporizes because of it, back to the cellar we go
That's essentially what happened to JJ