Post Game Press Conference Buzz Williams Transcript

This is a transcript of Buzz Williams’ interaction with the media after Marquette’s 91-37 victory over Mount St. Mary’s Friday evening.

Coach Buzz Williams:

How did things look from a coach’s perspective?

I thought we played OK at times. Giving up 16 offensive rebounds isn’t good at all. Defensively, from a priority standpoint is where we spent most of our time, and I thought in a lot of ways that came to life. The problem is that when you put so much pressure on the ball and you’re not allowing guys to throw it around where they want to throw it, you extend your defense. So that typically trends towards long shots which equal long rebounds. And we didn’t do a great job on the weak side of blocking our guys out. We’ve got to continue to work on that. It’s not like it’s something we don’t’ work on. Our guys understood what was happening but we definitely have to get better at that.

How are you guys progressing defensively, not just tonight but overall?

Not to be disrespectful to Mount St. Mary’s but they had three starters who didn’t play and only had six scholarship guys. Who we prepared to play wasn’t exactly who we played. And having said that, that incriminates us even more with 16 offensive rebounds. To force a team into 29 turnovers and to hold them to the field goal percentage that we did, all of those things are very positive. Ten times tonight we had three consecutive stops in a row. Which is what we call turkeys. From a defensive standpoint, if you get 7 you win. We had 10 and we won.

Do you enter the first game of the season looking for answers or looking to find more questions about your team that need to be answered?

I think that having the two scrimmages probably allows you to have answers more quickly than normal so it allows the efficiency of your practices to be much better and I think that both of our scrimmages allowed us to do that. And to address our concerns. And you hope that, for the first time when you play at the Bradley center, that you’ve already answered some questions before its ever known to the public. In a lot of ways I think we did do that. We’ve had 17 practices and one practice for shoot around. And I think in a lot of ways we were good. But you can’t give up 16 offensive rebounds and the problem is that 11 were from two guys. So we got to find out who are those two guys that are giving up the 11 offensive rebounds.

Is this kind of an extension of practice put into real world situations and seeing how things are going to work?

What ends up happening at a scrimmage is that nobody’s in the gym except the coaches, the players and the three officials. It’s not like we’re all sitting on benches and we’re playing a 40 minute game. You can work all day and that’s pretty much what we did on the previous two weekends. What ends up happening is that you finally all get to sit on the bench together: coaches, players and you actually have to sub like in real life not just, ‘hey, get in.’ All of those things add to ambiance of it but from an execution standpoint it’s the first time that it’s legit. There’s people watching and we’re all sitting on the bench. I think from an execution standpoint we were able to see some carry over from the past two weekend and I think in between that our practices were much better. And so some of the things that I’m saying in a timeout or during halftime are, ‘now do you understand why we do that in practice? Now do you understand when we do this why we stress this?’ And they do. They’re like everyone else, ‘we’re beating them.’ But the opponent’s not Mount St. Mary’s. The opponent is us. If you looked at all the numbers in the three years we’ve been here. Nationally or just league only, offensively we’re OK. In some ways, we’re really good. Where we’re bad and where our volatility is derived from, in my opinion, is all defensive related. And so we’ve spent all of our time, to an extent, on defensive based principles, defensive scoring type drills in practice, in hopes that shores up what has been our weakness and willing to give up some of our offensive prowess in hopes that defensively our numbers get more back to where they should be to compete to win. Not to beat Mount St. Mary’s.

What surprised you?

That they got 16 offensive rebounds. So what ends up happening is that we’re really guarding the ball, they’re initiating their offense before it ever crosses the timeline. So now the first guy that catches the ball isn’t catching it at the three-point line, he’s four and a half feet off of the three-point line. So now when they reverse the ball, now the ball is back behind the timeline. They reverse it to the other side, he’s five feet from the three-point line. Well if he shoots it, where the weak side rebounds are happening is when the ball is on the right side, the guys that are guarding the ball on the left side they’ve got to be on the mid-line. Well when the shot is taken you can’t just stand there, you’ve got to go back out to where your guys and take up that space. If you don’t take up that space, they’re going to take up the space. Long shots equal long rebounds, they’re going to get a bunch of them. And that’s where we’ve got to get better. But that’s a lot of work. Hey really guard the ball, really guard the ball and don’t let them pass it where they want, and stretch them out and make them catch it five feet behind the line and when it gets reversed, in case they drive you’ve got to be on the mid-line. But in case they shoot, you’ve got to go back out where you were. That’s a lot of work. That’s a lot of work. But it is a lot of work to win.

You pulled the five starters early. Was there something you didn’t like?

Well they gave up three offensive rebounds. They were at two made field goals for a long, long time. One of them, the first group, gave up three offensive rebounds. And then when I pulled the second group it was because they gave up two offensive rebounds. Those were the only two baskets. From a principles standpoint, we have five defensive principles, and the fifth one is take up space, finish the possession with a rebound. They didn’t. So we switched guys.

Does it say anything positive that they only had four second chance points?

Yes, but without being disrespectful they shouldn’t be able to score over us. But in respect to their work, they shouldn’t be able to get the ball in the first place. Some of that begins to be roster specific. They only scored four points on put backs, but they got 16 of them. From a field goal percentage standpoint, that’s about what they scored on the rest of their field goals that were not offensive rebounds. They scored 25 percent of the time.

What does Chris Otule bring to your program?

I think he can cover up mistakes as a player. That would be the first thing. But more importantly, as I tell him, jimmy butler would be the hardest player I’ve ever coached and Chris Otule would be the guy I’ve applied the most stress to during his time. I’ve told him several times over the last six weeks, ‘you’ve learned the hardest lesson that there is to learn in life: you’ve learned the value of working and that there is no substitute for that.’ He is an unbelievably pure, motive, humbled, genuine, caring guy. He texts me, ‘I love you,’ six days a week. He’s the most unbelievable human and if for some reason you were ever to see where he is from you would be like, ‘how in the world did you turn out to be this?’ Unbelievable story. And what happens, and I tell him this, I love him. He loves me. If I told him to go outside, stand in the middle of the road and somebody’s going to run over ya, for me, he would be like, ‘OK coach I’m going.’ And he would never budge. Him or Junior. Not once. But because of my heart towards him, that can’t restrict me from coaching him because he’s got to where he is because of how hard I’ve coached him. Parentally, I am so proud of him and I want to go, ‘yeah man, I’m proud of you.’ But then I can’t let that damper, I’ve got to coach him, because he might be the best one eyed guy ever, ever. If your last two years trend in the same direction as your first two years, I may just rollout with you and go wherever you go because I am so proud of him. It’s veteran’s day. We had a cornel speak to our team yesterday. We had a solider from Afghanistan who followed us as much as you guys do, last year while he was in Afghanistan, we got to meet him today. We brought him into the locker room tonight. As much as we stand at attention for those veterans it’s because of their work that allows us to this in fairytale land. But I stand at attention relative to Chris for his work. My respect barometer is always driven on people that work. I have the utmost respect for him because he learned how to work.

You hesitated to name a fifth starter earlier in the week, which ended up being Junior, can you go into your reasoning behind that?

I just like to play games with you guys.

How do you think he played tonight?

As long as I’m here, unless Junior tears his Achilles’, that’s my boy. And what I should have said on media day is, ‘I’m starting Junior and I don’t know the other four.’ Junior’s starting. Nothing against Derrick, I’m telling you just what I said to Tess. Junior and Chris have absolutely absorbed all that there is to absorb from my nuttiness. And I absolutely admire and respect who they are as people and both of those young men, because of the experience at Marquette, their lives are changed. Their lives are not changed when they leave here, their lives are changed now. They’ve already went through the evolution. There are only two ways to change: evolution and revolution. I’m not going to kill them. Those guys have evolved in ways as 18 years as a Division I coach that I’ve never seen. And those guys have two years left, I’m just telling you, I’m riding with them two cats. Win or lose, you will never hear me not stick up for those two guys because those dudes show up every single day with me. They show up every single day at class, in study hall, off the court, on the court, wherever they go. You can’t find better representation. I’d rather let them talk than me talk because they’re better people than I am. Both of them. So junior was starting. I just like playing games with y’all.