Buzz Williams joins TexAgs Radio as showdown with Kentucky looms

Key notes from Buzz Williams interview

• We don’t have the margin for it to be anything other than close games late. I think our guys have a better understanding of what we’re trying to accomplish on both ends of the floor. Our discipline and execution of those things needs to be more consistent in the next few weeks of SEC play. Winning has been good, and we’re thankful for it. The team values and understands the preparation for games, and they can see it translating to the games.
   
• I always tell the team that the way they play speaks to their character, which speaks to who raised them. When you look at what has transpired, even if you’re just talking about the four conference games, resilience would be a good descriptor for our team and how they’ve played so far. That has been evident, whether we’ve been winning or losing. You’ve been able to see the resiliency from each of our guys.
   
• We’re coming together faster than I thought. We’re almost 300th in the country in the continuity of minutes played. That means we’re extremely inexperienced. We’re also very young. I think the camaraderie and the chemistry of the group considering their inexperience comes from their comfortability with each other off the court. We had to take the togetherness they had off the floor and have it translate to the court. I still don’t think we’re all the way there, but I think you’re starting to see it. We’re ahead of schedule for sure. I know it’s year three regarding our tenure here, but it’s almost like it’s year one of a restart after what has happened in the past 18 months.
   
• I think Kentucky has lost one SEC game, and I believe it was at LSU. For us, we’re not good enough or wise enough to skip today or tomorrow in our preparation. I do not think we played very well on Saturday. I know we won, and I know we fought hard in the last 30 minutes. We were down eight with like six-and-a-half minutes left. I don’t think we played great, but we didn’t play awful. For some of the things that aren’t on the stat sheet, we lost some consistency in those key aspects.
   
• This will be the first time we play a Wednesday night game. I hope everyone having yesterday off will allow them to get back on track today and tomorrow. We will need that because Kentucky has a Hall of Fame coach and a couple of lottery picks. It’s almost like playing an NBA team. All of the things we were poor at on Saturday, we will need to be near perfect to have a chance on Wednesday.
   
• I don’t know how long I’ll coach, but regardless of whether he’s a player or not, Hassan Diarra will always have a place on our staff because of what’s inside of him, his story and the way he grew up. He is an inspiration, regardless of whether he’s an athlete or not. He will be ultra-successful because of what’s inside of him. At a very early age, he has the audacity to always tell the truth, regardless of the emotion of the moment. He is not our best player, and he will never be the best player. He is very accepting of who he is from a talent perspective. That said, he is very aware of how he impacts the games because of his actions. He will always respond, and he has the ability to capture the attention of the program whenever he speaks as a sophomore in college. His ability to impact our program is much deeper than making a basket. (Editor’s Note: Buzz went in-depth about Diarra’s recruitment process and shared even more about his character. Transcript notes do not do it justice, and we highly suggest taking a listen.)
   
• At that moment, what are the matchups? We do a good job of studying the opponent’s tendencies and the matchups we want to take advantage of. A lot also has to do with time, score and momentum. In the Missouri game, we did a good job of forcing rotation. We wanted to take advantage of it, and it was the difference in the game because we were able to get to the bonus quicker than usual. Our game plan is never specifically one player but rather what we want to take advantage of at that given moment in the game.
   
• Every coach probably has a different vibe on how to approach Kentucky. It’s not Bill Belichick and the Patriots of devising a perfect game plan in the six days before kickoff. There is a foundation of how we want to play, and each opponent provides tweaks to that foundation. We teach it that way two days before a game. One day before a game, we get into a rhythm with that implementation. Every opponent gives us a “volcano rock,” which is the biggest priority, and then there are other “big rocks.” We always start with defense first when it comes to the other big rocks. There is no one game plan to beating Kentucky, but rather it has to happen over the few days before we get to the game. Today, there will be words, and then we will watch why those words matter. Then we will walk through what we watched. Every kid learns differently, and those are three ways to show what we teach as we prepare for Kentucky.