How Hot Is The Seat For Aggies Coach Buzz Williams?

While the expectations at A&M aren't the highest, they're not super low either

Texas A&M men's basketball coach Buzz Williams has had success before. In six years at Marquette, he went to five NCAA tournaments, including an Elite Eight run in 2013. Taking over an even worse situation at Virginia Tech, Williams made the Big Dance in each of his final three seasons, including a Sweet Sixteen nod in 2019.

Then in April of 2019, Williams was offered, and accepted, his current position at A&M. He inherited a program coming off a 14-18 record in Billy Kennedy's final season, and yet just one year removed from a Sweet Sixteen bid. It was because of those previous successes that the 8-10 mark for the Aggies in 2020 was so surprising, although the month-long COVID-induced stoppage surely didn't help, as the Aggies didn't play a single basketball game in the entire month of February. When they did play, they didn't look very good, winning two SEC games by a total of three points.

A&M ranked last in the conference in offensive efficiency and just 12th in defensive efficiency.

A unique situation that's clearly leading to the instability and rebuilding attitude of the program that Williams desires is the mass exodus to the transfer portal. While the expectations at A&M aren't the highest, they're not super low either.

This season, the Aggies started off hot with what should've been an easy non-conference schedule. A&M won its first four games over North Florida, Abilene Christian, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, and Houston Baptist by a combined 74 points while shooting 44.4 percent over that stretch. Not great, but not terrible, especially against lesser teams.

A&M then went 3-2 over its next five, with a loss to eventual tournament champion Wisconsin at the Maui Jim Maui Invitational shooting just 38.8 percent before winning its next three over Butler, Notre Dame, and New Orleans with an average shooting percentage of 46.2. Then the Aggies lost to TCU in Houston shooting 45.4 percent from the floor. With a 10-2 record and having won four in a row, the Aggies seemed poised to make a run in the SEC, even with sub-par shooting. But maybe with decent defense and limiting turnovers, this thing could work.

Then came conference play.

A&M won a nailbiter over a Georgia team that's currently 6-19 and 14th in the league, beat a good Arkansas team, then had wins over Ole Miss and Missouri while shooting 49.2 percent over those four games.

That Missouri victory on Jan. 15 is the last time the Aggies found the win column. Over the next eight games, all losses, A&M has shot just 39.3 percent.

For the season, A&M is tied for 201st in the country shooting just 43.8 percent from the field and ranks 325th shooting 66.3 percent from the charity stripe.

Is this Williams' fault? Maybe not, but this team has his fingerprints all over it. And as discussed earlier, by this point in Williams' other stops there had been a measurable amount of success. But for the Aggies in 2022, the possibility for success seems to be as low as the team's shooting percentage. 

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Follow Timm Hamm on Twitter @IndyCarTim

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