Buzzer Beat 'em
Maryland over Coppin St, Nov 3, 2025-26 season opener
(Photo credit Karl Merton Ferron / Baltimore Sun)
I still have some feelings about Kevin Willard leaving Maryland for Villanova.
So. Many. Feelings.
Here’s the thing:
In the hundred years of the Maryland mens basketball program, no coach has ever left to go coach somewhere else. Until this year.
I want to wallow in this point for a second, just to emphasize it. Here’s the entire list of Maryland mens coaches in the program’s history:
H Burton Shipley, 1923-47 – Retired as basketball coach in ‘47 but remained as baseball coach until retiring in 1960. The baseball field is named after him.
Flucie Stewart, 1947-1950 – Fired after consecutive terrible seasons.
Bud Millikan, 1950-1967 – Retired.
(In retirement he volunteered with his grandson’s high school team, Marist HS in Atlanta.)Frank Fellows, 1967-69 – Fired after two 8-win seasons.
Lefty Dreisell, 1969-1986 – Fired in the wake of the Len Bias tragedy.
Bob Wade, 1986-89 – Fired for NCAA violations.
Gary Williams, 1989-2011 – Retired.
Mark Turgeon, 2011-2021 – Maybe he was fired, maybe he quit; but whichever, he has not coached since.
Danny Manning, 2021-2 – Interim coach to finish out the season.
Kevin Willard, 2022-25 – Left to coach Villanova.
Buzz, 2025.
Retired/fired, retired/fired: one of these things is not like the others.
The Maryland job has always been a lifetime job; a destination job. Until now. Kevin WIllard took the Terps to the Sweet 16, and then left to take the Villanova job. He turned Maryland into a stepping-stone job!
Maryland! A stepping-stone job.
It’s the worst insult. One of the most cherished beliefs Maryland basketball fans have held is that this is one of those “destination” jobs. It’s not Kansas or UCLA or North Carolina; but it’s among the ten or fifteen jobs in the next tier, that you simply wouldn’t leave (unless Kansas or Kentucky opened up). Kevin Willard changed that. He pushed Maryland down a tier or two below where we’ve always believed the program to be. Not by anything he said: his actual action MADE it true. Honestly I can’t believe how much it hurts.
And what does a stepping-stone job get? One of those itinerant, peripatetic coaches who bounce around from job to job, and whose teams can be found cluttering up the #25 to 40 spots in the national rankings year after year. Like Buzz Williams.
Being asked to embrace Buzz Williams as the coach at Maryland feels a little like – this is so overdramatic it’s embarrassing – feels like being asked to love a new stepdad after your father leaves. That’s a lot to say. It’s fair to ask, why would it feel that way? Well:
The mythtique of Kevin Willard
I bought into an idea. When a coach stays at one place a long time, a place that doesn’t have the same resources as some bigger-time programs, and he wins there – like Kevin Willard at Seton Hall – then you can believe this about him:
He did a lot with a little; and with the extra resources that a program like Maryland has, the sky is the limit.
Another factor with Kevin Willard is that he was a sarcastic Jersey guy. Who coached with an emphasis on defense! The last sarcastic Jersey guy who emphasized D that the Terps hired as coach: he worked out pretty well. I was prepared to believe.
Willard’s 2nd & 3rd seasons coincided with the sea-change that NIL brought to college basketball. He floundered in his second season, bad. But with his third season he made adjustments, and those were major.
● He worked Maryland alum Drew Nicholas, Director of Scouting for the NBA Champion Denver Nuggets; and also with an “analytics firm” that we don’t know much about; and with them he devised a player acquisition strategy to target mid-major players who would “fit” together.
● He made a calculated decision to back off a little on his defensive emphasis, in order to have a better offense. Coincident with that, or maybe as part of that:
● With assistant coach Greg Manning, he had his squad do more work in “small-sided games” and “contraints based coaching”. These are newer concepts in the basketball coaching world; but they are known to be super effective.
(Brian McCormick is probably the most vocal American proponent of these approaches to basketball over the last 15-20 years.)
Those three bullets were exciting. There was reason to believe that an already-good coach had found a new gear and was ready to take off.
I liked Willard more than some fans I interacted with in the Testudo Times comments. I myself am a sarcastic guy (born in Jersey, too!) so I guess I was predisposed. I bought in. I mean, I really bought in. It shook me, to realize just how much energy & enthusiasm I had poured into the idea of The Kevin Willard Era at Maryland.
One thing about Buzz, he’s a WORKER
The roster was completely emptied and built over again over the course of about six or seven weeks. Not a single player is carrying over from last season.1 This holds true for the coaching staff too; not a single holdover.
And from the void, within two months Buzz had conjured this group:
Guards David Coit, Senr – 5-11, 175 Myles Rice, R-Junr – 6-2, 175 Isaiah Watts, Soph – 6-3, 170 Darius Adams, Fresh – 6-5, 175 Guillermo Del Pino, Fresh – 6-5, 183 Wings Rakease Passmore, Soph – 6-5, 185 Andre Mills, R-Fresh – 6-4, 205 Jaziah Harper, Fresh – 6-7, 205 George Turkson, R-Fresh – 6-7, 220 Forwards Elijah Saunders, Senr – 6-8, 240 Solomon Washington, Senr – 6-7, 225 Centers Pharrel Payne, Senr – 6-9, 255 Colin Metcalf, Senr – 6-9, 227
That’s a real roster. I’m not saying it’s a Final Four -caliber squad; but those are real players. If Tom Izzo had that squad you’d pencil them in for 3rd- or 4th-place in the B1G. It seems like an Izzo-type squad: run-&-jump athletes who hustle and scrap. They will defend and they will rebound. Just glancing at the list, I think Buzz has a great shot at a middle-of-pack finish in conference and a Tournament berth. Joe Lunardi’s first edition of his way-too-early bracket had Maryland on the 10 line. That makes them a top-40 team. Remember, Maryland had zero players just a few weeks earlier.
The volume was one aspect. The types of player was another.
● Flipping a top-25 recruit from recent two-time national champ UConn is an aggressive move. It speaks to ambition: we’re not content with the scraps left behind after the big boys get their fill, we want The Best.
● Signing a FIBA Euro MVP guard speaks to being open to the modern elements in basketball play-styles.
● Signing a polished low-post bull speaks to not neglecting the old school.
Eight weeks in, Buzz had indisputably done a great job.
But isn’t that a weird thing to say about a coaching performance? Because what we would have lauded Buzz for in June isn’t “coaching”, at all. There was nothing there having anything do with improving player fundamentals or making tactical in-game adjustments. He hadn’t done that for Maryland (yet). Those players hadn’t even arrived on-campus yet (summer session started June 1).
If Buzz had done a great job his first two months in the Maryland head-coaching job (and he had), it was in exactly one sphere.
We try to forget this during the season because we love watching the sport. The game on the court is absolutely beautiful. But this is true: the most essential skill of the college basketball head coach is to get them to sign on the line which is dotted. I read an interview with Jim Boeheim once (about 35 years ago) where he said, “At this level we can all coach. The difference is recruiting.” There’s a famous quote from Dean Smith that goes:
Getting the ball to the right player at the right spot on the floor: that’s coaching. What that player does when he gets the ball, that’s recruiting.
Recruit, recruit, recruit.
Buzz did a great job his first eight weeks as the Maryland mens basketball coach. Our first settled impression of Buzz & co has to be their work ethic. He & his staff were tireless. But what he & they did a great job at early is recruiting, not “coaching”. Buzz signed players.
I don’t mean that as criticism: what he did is crucial. You can’t coach an empty gym. But it’s not what we mean when we ask “What kind of coach is he?” If Buzz had done a great job in the Maryland head-coaching job thru June (and he had), we still didn’t know what kind of “coach” he was. And indeed, that very success fueled a prejudice (prejudgement?) I’d had about him for years.
But I was wrong about Buzz in important ways
My impression of Buzz from a distance was that he was one of those slicky-boy fast-talking snake-oil salesmen. College basketball is full of those guys. Ace recruiters.
You almost want to say that Rick Pitino is the preeminent examplar of the type; except that Pitino is too damn good. He is an unbelievable coach: motivator, Xs-&-Os guy, the whole nine. Yeah he’s a closer too; but just because he’s the whole package, including the charisma. So I think we can’t use Pitino as the examplar of the type. He might be the examplar of what the "type” aspires to be; but not of what it actually is. Maybe a guy like Sean Miller is more like what I’m talking about.
College basketball is full of guys who bounce from job to job, achieving success on the basis of being Ace Recruiters; and being a little sleazy. That’s what I thought assumed about Buzz. Buzz’s history doesn’t contradict that impression:
— 6 years at Marquette (5 NCAATs)
— 5 years at Va Tech (3 NCAATs)
— 6 years at Texas A&M (3 NCAATs)I was surprised to learn that Buzz isn’t like that. I mean, he is a closer: that’s certainly true. But it turns out he’s passionate about coaching as coaching: not so much Xs-&-Os as life lessons and molding young men into the best person they can be, etc etc. I generally find that stuff a little corny; but I can recognize & appreciate sincerity when I see it.
It turns out Buzz has been exchanging letters (not emails, written letters) with Lefty Dreisell for 25+ years.
‘My dad’s rejoicing in heaven’: Lefty Driesell’s son commends Buzz Williams hiring by Harrison Rich · May 7, 2025
It turns out Buzz has been exchanging letters with Gary for 20 years.
“So they mentioned to me during the process that they wanted me to talk with Coach Williams,” [Buzz] Williams said. “I’ve written Coach Williams for years. ... I never mentioned that George Raveling is one of my greatest mentors who worked here with Coach Driesell the first four years. I never mentioned that Coach Raveling’s book with Ryan Holiday – Coach Rav is 87 – came out last month, and he mentions me several times in the book. I didn’t want the Maryland job because I knew the history of the talent, the talent of the players, the talent of the coaches, because I never wanted to barter my relationships with those coaches as if I had ownership in this program. What this program has done speaks for itself, and that has nothing to do with Buzz. But when I see Coach Williams, I’m going to speak to him whether it’s a press conference or not, whether I’m supposed to be sitting behind you, I’m going to speak to him.
It turns out that, like Phil Jackson, Buzz is one of those coaches who gives his players books to read. (Concrete examples were all over Buzz’s website around the time of his hiring, including book recommendations. Interesting ones. Can’t see it now; site is under maintenance.)
Coaching is a calling to him. He’s deepy religious. The personal leadership aspect of it, the guiding young men aspect of it, is his focus. I didn’t expect that.
So Buzz is not quite the same ol’ / same ol’ slicky-boy salesman quick-buck type that I expected.
And in line with that, it is really striking how four players came with him from A&M to Maryland: Pharel Payne, Solomon Washington, George Turkson, and Andre Mills. Turskon & Mills redshirted at A&M! Imagine in the modern NIL age: players come in as freshmen; coach sits ‘em, doesn’t let ‘em play at all their first year; and they are so bought-in & committed that they follow that coach to the next school to stay with him! That’s really remarkable.
Here’s some choice quotes from this piece, showcasing players’ responses to Buzz:
Buzz Williams’ ‘human coach’ approach helped him rebuild Maryland men’s basketball’s roster by Ryan Alonardo · Oct 29, 2025
Kansas transfer David Coit:
“I knew I wanted to be with Buzz,” guard Diggy Coit said. “And I just like how [Texas A&M] played. I like everything that people said about [Williams]. They all said the same thing about him, how consistent he was as a man, how he builds character and his players.”
Freshman Jaziah Harper and redshirt transfer George Turkson:
Williams’ high-character human qualities were also imperative for many of the new commits. Freshman Jaziah Harper lauded Williams’ ability to connect with his players, and spoke glowingly of his ability to coach up players who went on to play at the highest of levels. But when asked at media day what most drew him to Williams, he pinpointed the coach’s humility as the largest factor.
Williams’ human side was specifically mentioned by some of the other Texas A&M players who have gotten to know him quite well. Transfer forward George Turkson Jr. called Williams a “human coach,” and emphasized that Williams is a great life teacher.
His coaching staff shows the same commitment: guys who’ve been with Buzz for years. In his piece on the game for the Baltimore Banner, Kyle Goon quoted assistant coach Devon Johnson:
It is extremely telling about Williams’ cult of personality that he inspires so much loyalty and love from his staffers and players. Devin Johnson played for Williams as a senior at the University of New Orleans, then followed him on his coaching staff from Marquette to Virginia Tech to A&M and now here.
His allegiance to Williams is absolute. The bond, Johnson said, is like that of a family member. “It’s something that we haven’t done in a while,” Johnson said of transitioning to a new school. “It’s something easy that we can get adjusted to because of the people we have.”
And Johnson’s tenure on Williams’ staff isn’t particularly long, by comparison! Buzz has his guys.
I’m not super-comfortable with how “closed” the coaching staff seems to be. I tend to assume that a coaching staff needs an influx of new ideas from time to time. If we worried that Buzz’s teams at A&M played a stodgy old-fashioned style of ball; well, the cloistered quality of his coaching staff could be one reason for it.
On the other hand, they signed that 6-5 Euro kid, which bespeaks some openness to different styles of ball. And this game vs Coppin St also showed some stuff.
I’m also not super comfortable with the religious aspects of Buzz’s program; praying over players and whatnot. But I don’t have to be. If it resonates with the players (and their families), that’s what matters. And it seems to.
A side-aspect of the religion thing – this is a cynical observation that maybe reveals too much about me – is: it could be a recruiting advantage in some cases. Think about this. For the most part, every high-major in the country is recruiting the same highly-rated players. If your program wears religion on its sleeve, then that is going to appeal very deeply to a certain number of players and their families. It’s going to be a differentiator for some. Some players are going to want to play for you because of that. Some families are going to want their son to play for you because of that. It’s going to be a small percentage of the good recruitable players; but that’s all you can sign anyway! This isn’t football; you can’t sign 20 players a year. You can only take 3 or 4 most years (obviously a lot more in some years, like this one for Maryland).
If a couplefew top-50 players choose Buzz every year because of the overt religion – well, those are recruiting wins and cause for celebration. You can have a great program that way.
I’ve been away
So – with all my “feels”, I’ve been away from Maryland basketball the past few months. What can I say? I needed time to process.
It was also true that my Ravens had what seemed to be a great draft, and seemed to be pointing toward a great season. (The season hasn’t actually turned out to be all that great; but that’s another story.) That has occupied most of my sporting attention.
And the Wizards have been fascinating! Of all teams! Their rebuilding process is extremely interesting; and it seems to be working. They seem to be embracing some of the “principle-based offense and defense” things that I’ve come to believe in over the years; they are undertaking their rebuild “the right way”, without shorcuts; and they (finally!) have some really interesting young players: Alex Sarr, Kyshawn George, Tre Johnson, Bilal Coulibaly. The idea that the Wizards could finally be near to having a solid foundation in place for a bright future – I mean, it’s not quite the Red Sawx breaking The Curse of the Bambino, or the Cubbies breaking a hundred-year drought to win the World Series; but it’s pretty hefty.
So there’s been plenty for me to pay attention to this sporting summer, other than the Terps. But, the season has started. Time to take a look.
Plus, Buzz signed the son of my all-time favorite college basketball player! Stevie Blake’s son is a Terp!!!! I gotta watch.
One final observation about “cloisteredness” on the coaching staff, and religion, and the personal devotion to Buzz:
It seems to me that Buzz wants to lead D1 in player retention. The NIL era features player movement; teams losing most of their players every year and having to reload. But here we see Buzz having retained two redshirt freshman, and having players cross the country to stay with him.
A quote from a piece on Testudo Times last week shows that it’s deliberate:
“[Our staff] was among the lowest in the country at the Power Four level in relation to transfer rate,” Williams said. “We’re proud of that.”
If Buzz is recruiting 4-stars
— and he is: Austin Brown, Adama Tambedo, Kaden House —
and he is able to get them to stay: then that makes his program different. It might let him build a juggernaut.
In the meantime as long as this relationship continues to hold true, most Terp fans will be mollified:
Game Stats
There are two ways to win games: shoot better (true shooting percentage to account for free throws and three-pointers) and take more shots (turnovers and offensive rebounds).
— Brian McCormick (paraphrased)
Brian McCormick’s Two Factors Maryland Coppin St TS% .621 .539 Shots 66.9 56.6 Shots/Poss .99 .83
Buzz’s Terps shot better and they took more shots. This looks like a blowout. By the way, “shots” here is a decimal because they’re not counted, they’re calculated from Field Goal Attempts plus a fraction of Free Throw Attempts.
Slightly more sophisticated, and more widely used in the hoop analytics community, is:
Dean Oliver’s Four Factors Maryland Coppin St eFG% 54.5% 50.0% FTM/FGA .418 .245 OReb% 34.4% 25.8% TOV% 17.7% 29.2%
More statistical residue from a blowout. Maryland beat Coppin in every facet: they shot better, they got to the line more (and converted), they rebounded better, the turned the ball over less (and turned Coppin over more).
After being worried this offseason that Buzz Ball would be a grungy old-fashioned slog, I was encouraged by what I saw Monday. In fact, these Terps reminded me a little bit of Gary’s Terps. They fought for rebounds and were scrappy in the halfcourt D. They pushed pace and looked to score in transition.
Buzz seemed to play a lot of guys; he got his second team into the game very quick. That was a persistent complaint I had about Kevin Willard’s Terps. Of course, it was against an overmatched opponent. Games in the same weight class will tell us a lot more about how deep Buzz plans to go into his bench.
Considering Buzz’s relationships with Lefty, and with Gary; and his sense of Maryland being a place of history; and noting also his recruitments of Darius Adams and David Coit (who shot 9 three’s per 40 at Kansas); it seems possible that Buzz believes there is an appropriate pace and style of play for this program. A pace and style that we fans would like and agree with.
From what I’ve heard in interviews, Buzz absolutely won’t say that on the record. My takeaway has been that he doesn’t want to make a commitment to that pace and style for fans to hear, because he doesn’t yet know what he’ll need to do to stay compete in B1G games. That’s reasonable. But if it’s an idea in his mind and a goal he’ll try for, I’m happy.
Here’s your box score for the game: standard + 4 additional “analytics” columns showing Possessions, Usage, True Shooting Pct, and John Hollinger’s Game Score stat:
Eight players played 13+ minutes.
53% of attempted FGs were three’s.
92% from the line will get it done! Shout hallelujah!
Speaking of Free Throws: if Darius Adams can keep getting to the line like that, he will be a monster.
I have no doubt that Pharrel Payne will lead the Terps in GameScore most nights.
David Coit was assertive as hell off the bench.
Interesting that Del Pino played 13 mins without attempting a shot. I didn't think he looked lost or unassertive (but I only watched half the game). Could it be a Euro thing? They don’t need me to shoot, so I’ll just play connector? Hope so: would like to see him turn out to be an effective player, just to hold up the honor of the Euro import.
Khali Horton was the 2nd-best player on the court. Do you agree with that? I didn’t notice him; but again, I only watched half the game.
DNP for Nick Blake. Was he hurt? I can’t bear for Stevie’s son to regularly be a healthy scratch.
Next Up
Friday vs Georgetown at Xfinity!
A beloved but neglected old rivalry is reborn. At least there’s something we can thank Kevin Willard for, due to his longstanding relationship with Georgetown coach Ed Cooley from their time in the Big East.
Of course this matchup will put many of us in mind of that great game from 1993, that out Gary’s Terps (and Joe Smith) on the map. Easy to forget that Maryland has played GU four times since then: an NCAA Tournament game and three November tilts (like this one).
This one should just be fun. No blood rivalry here. By KenPom these Terps are noticeably better than the Hoyas. But it’s way to early in the season for KenPom’s numbers to be reliable. Those rankings will be quite volatile for a couple months.
Actually, that’s not COMPLETELY true.
Hey, Jim. I’m Memphis Terp 1 on Testudo Times. Great post!
I’m still trying to get excited about this season. Friday’s game certainly didn’t help. I’m not expecting much honestly. I expect Payne will be good, but I’m not sure where any shooting is going to come from. We’ll see.