Buzz Williams
As the season has unfolded, Tech has done more visual learning than talking. Williams feels like his team responds better to visual learning through film than anything else. They use film of opponents, and how other teams attack opponents. They even use some NBA film.
Tech attempted to take five charges against UVA, and got two of them. They should have gotten more, but that’s the most they have taken in an ACC game, so that’s a positive step.
There were several guys who made a lot of winning plays against UVA, but they didn’t make them as a team down the stretch. There is a delicate balance to telling the truth and trying to be positive in nature. Tech played defense as well as anybody has against UVA, so there were a lot of good things. They just need more of those good things.
Tech has played so many close games. Had they won them all, they could be 13-6 and things would be a little different. However, you are what your record says you are.
Buzz Williams tries to overpay his staff so he can hire overqualified people. That’s what he explained to Whit Babcock during the interview process. Williams knows his strengths, and he tries to hire people that can do things that he isn’t necessarily good at.
Williams thinks it’s unfair how the January schedule has played out, but he also understands that Tech has been in last place for three years and he is the new guy in the league, so the Hokies have to earn a better schedule.
Normally Tech takes a day off after a game, but they can’t do that after the UVA game because they play Pitt on Tuesday. Williams didn’t go home until midnight on Sunday night. The Hokies began preparing for the Panthers on Sunday night. He had to flip them from the UVA game to the Pitt game. It’s a delicate process.
Buzz Williams loved the atmosphere in Cassell Coliseum on Sunday. He thought it was great, and the players really appreciate it.
Buzz Williams has never heard a word about Isaiah Ford joining the basketball team, except when he’s asked about it by people around town. He assumes it won’t happen, since it’s almost February.
The Justin Bibbs situation is delicate. A concussion has to do with the brain, so it’s not like an ankle sprain. Tech is doing all the right stuff. They have him sequestered in a hotel, unless he has academic responsibilities. However, he hasn’t been released to do any physical activity. He scored one point higher on his concussion test before the UVA game, but he’ll still have to take the test to play even after he is cleared for physical activity. He couldn’t be at the game on Sunday, and he won’t be there on Tuesday either.
Williams tries not to talk to officials that he doesn’t know because he knows he might come across wrong. He generally only talks to the refs that he already knows.
Justin Robinson is a left-handed point guard who is having a really good season. He was at the game on Sunday, along with Chris Clarke. Kerry Blackshear is 6-9.5 and around 230. Clarke has a very high ceiling as a player. All three guys are what you want in your first recruiting class, not only as players, but as students as well.
Pitt hasn’t been great in the last week, but they haven’t been bad when you consider who they played. No coach will ever do at Pitt what Jamie Dixon has done. In the last four games, they have run 58 different plays. That makes them very tough to prepare for, especially with just one day between games. Williams is very familiar with how they play thanks to his days with them in the Big East. The Hokies will have their hands full.
There are multiple teams in the ACC that have a chance to advance deep into the NCAA Tournament.
Williams is rooting for Erick Green to stick in the NBA. He had a chance to meet Green over the summer, and he’s a great kid. Though Williams never coached Green, he loves watching his former Marquette players who are currently in the NBA. It’s a great feeling to see a guy you recruited and coached move on to the next level.
Tech needs to have more free throw attempts. They need to shoot a better percentage, but they never even got to the bonus against UVA. They have to do a better job of getting to the line. You have to get to the bonus as quickly as possible so they have a chance to score more points per possession. They need those free points with the clock stopped.
Buzz isn’t opposed to shortening the shot clock a bit, but he doesn’t think taking it to 24 seconds is the right play. Just because you speed up the game doesn’t mean you will make more shots. It might mean that you miss more shots. There is more zone being played these days, so a shorter shot clock might actually lead to worse basketball because it can lead to bad shots.
Williams hopes the Hokies have a great crowd against Pitt. The team would appreciate it a lot.
Virginia Tech has held the Commonwealth Cup for 3712 days. #Hokies
— Commonwealth Cup (@CommonwlthCup) January 26, 2015
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I hope Blackshear really is 6’9.5″…that would be greatly needed added height to the team
I’m 100% all for shortening the shot clock to 30 seconds. I agree that the NBA’s 24 seconds is too quick for the talent level of the average college team. But I think 30 is a better balance that prevents the game from slowing down too much when one team has a ~10 point lead near the end of the game.
One thing about Buzz that cracked me up that was discussed on TTL but not mentioned in the notes is how Buzz really has no idea what the upcoming schedule is like outside of the next 2-3 games. For instance, he didn’t know when we play at Duke nor did he know we play at Clemson on Valentine’s Day. Goes to show how deeply involved he is in preparing for the now and not looking past any teams that are next up on our schedule.
Finally, Bill was mentioning how several coaches have been thrown out of Cameron in their first visits as head coach to Duke. Buzz said he absolutely wants to be one of those guys (for the entertainment value, presumably). He also said it bothers him that the technical foul the bench received against WVU went pretty much unexplained; it felt like an empty, no purpose technical. He wants there to be some benefit/entertainment value if he is going to get a technical foul.
I really like this guy!
Regarding Bibbs. Why is “sequestered at a hotel” part of his concussion treatment? I don’t follow that at all.
It is an effort to limit external stimulus and allow the brain time to heal. Light, video games, computers, tv all need to be minimized to help the process.