Gary Williams, Darryll Pines on Buzz Williams and "his commitment to want to be at Maryland"

With Juan Dixon next to him sitting in the front row of Wednesday’s introductory press conference, former Maryland men’s basketball head coach Gary Williams knows why Buzz Williams can be the long-term answer for the program.

“Just want to make it as good as you can. That's his vision. That's been his vision at the other places he's been,” Williams told reporters on Wednesday. “It's funny, I was at American for two years, Boston College four, Ohio State three. Then I came here for 22 [years]. I hope Buzz does the same thing.”

President Darryll Pines, meanwhile, believes this is a “destination” for his newest hire.

“The criteria that you heard from Colleen [Sorem], he checked off all of that criteria for us,” Pines added. “And his commitment to want to be at Maryland was important to us. And his high character and high integrity was also important, as was alluded to in the little video of the players and his coach. All that mattered to us.”

“I think sometimes you have to leave this area to understand how other people feel about this job. We're so close to the nation's capital, but every once in a while that negativity seems to seep into College Park. This is a great place. This is my school, so I'm partial, but I think Buzz at this place, if I'm going to spend my next 20 years, this is where I want to be.”

Buzz, meanwhile, began making a name for himself in college basketball during his time at Marquette beginning back in 2007 where he served as an assistant for one season before taking over as head coach in 2008. Though Buzz and Gary Williams never faced off, the former Maryland head coach is plenty familiar with the program’s new head coach.

“He's one of those people that really does respect the history of the game and all those things, and so he's inquisitive. He's always asking questions. He's always trying to find things that will help him and his teams get better. I always – I was the same way when I coached. I never thought I had all the answers. I was fortunate to be around some great coaches, but in this business, you steal ideas and see how you can fit them to your philosophy.”

Williams heads to College Park for his first stint in the Big Ten after serving as the head coach at Marquette, Virginia Tech and most recently Texas A&M, reaching the NCAA Tournament in 11 of his 18 seasons as head coach including an Elite Eight appearance back in 2013. Now, Williams looks to become one of three coaches in college basketball history to win 100 games at four different schools.

“I think the kindred with coach Gary Williams, is really important. And this Williams brand, I think means a lot to Buzz Williams,” president Darryll Pines said. “And I think he's going to try to excel in our environment, really to the highest level. And the highest level is to get to the final game.”

But after former players like Steve Blake and Greivis Vasquez made it clear they were interested in transitioning into a coaching role in College Park with Blake eyeing the head coaching job, Williams admitted it was “hard for me to look at that objectively” whether Buzz should add a former player to the staff.

“Those guys, were still very close. I think they call it a text chain, is that right? We all are on that. A guy has a birthday or something like that, so we might talk to each other quite a bit. You know, that's strictly Buzz’s decision. I'd love to see a Maryland guy on there, but there's a lot of ways to get it done, so hopefully we'll see somebody that has a history here.”

Now comes the hard part with Williams now tasked with filling a near-full roster with Chance Stephens the lone Terp to not enter the portal, while freshman phenom and projected lottery pick Derik Queen has yet to officially announce his plans for next season. Buzz Williams admitted "the last 32 hours, I've done no recruiting", so what’s Gary Williams’ recommendation for the rebuild?

“Have a lot of money. Any question you get in recruiting now, if it's not the first it's the second question. How much? That's a big part of recruiting.”

After the former head coach Kevin Willard made national headlines surrounding the university’s inability to match resources and NIL budgets like the top programs nationally, Williams pushed back and remained confident in Maryland’s ability to stay competitive.

“The thing that everybody should know that when it was only going with coach Willard, Maryland proved that they had every bit of resource that Villanova or any other basketball school has. That was pretty apparent as things went along with that. Just the idea, the interest of people, in terms of Buzz coming in here as a new coach, he has to feel good about that. Even people that had all the answers about who you should hire and all those things, the interest, you don't get bigger interests than what was around the last couple of weeks. And that's a very positive thing moving forward for the university, for the basketball program.”

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