'There's Some Urgency!' For Buzz Williams, Aggies, Grind Starts in Non-Conference Play

The Texas A&M Aggies have a tough non-conference slate ahead of them, but with a strong returning core, they'll look to hit the ground running and control their own destiny.

Texas A&M's head coach Buzz Williams watches his player during the second round game between Texas A&M and the University of Houston in the 2024 NCAA Tournament at FedExForum in Memphis, Tenn., on Sunday, March 24, 2024. / Chris Day/The Commercial Appeal / USA TODAY NETWORK

From the start, the Texas A&M Aggies were expected to struggle.

They scheduled one of the toughest non-conference schedules in program history, replete with a season-opener against a top-5 program, a bout with the national title runner-ups and a million-dollar trip to Las Vegas, and now that the season is fast-approaching, the reflection period is, too.

When asked if the slate is set to be as difficult as it was expected to be, Buzz Williams kept it simple.

"I would say so," he said. "Yeah."

Williams and company tend to approach the early stages of the season different than most. This season. three incoming transfers are set to make big impacts for a squad also returning its best player in hopes of making it further than the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Getting in position early, Williams says, will be crucial to that effort, and doing so begins with a tough non-conference slate — which the players understand.

"It's even more difficult than it was this time last year," Williams said. "I think there's some urgency in the details of what's required to just position yourself to have a chance. The returning players have been maybe more communicative in those strands of things, (which) speaks to their ownership."

Where the older players are owning up to the shortcomings and initial struggles of last season, the younger players are set to bring a fresh mindset. The Aggies have cracked the Big Dance each of the last two seasons with Wade Taylor IV at the helm — a change from the NIT appearance they made when Taylor was a freshman — and are poised to do so again, if they play their cards right.

"I think a lot of it just has to do with the relationships," Williams said. "You can see the importance of trustful relationships, whether that's within a staff, within a team (or) a program. I'm trying to do right by the opportunity just to be a part of it because I don't know that it'll happen again."

Between Taylor, Jace Carter, Hayden Hefner, Solomon Washington, Andersson Garcia, Manny Obaseki and Henry Coleman III, the Aggies look uber familar to the way they did one season ago. Perhaps that's where the close-knit relationships come from.

Beyond that, however, it also puts Texas A&M in a position to hold itself to a high standard. Williams described it as an "era," and if it's the last year of it, they'll certainly want to take full advantage — starting with the toughest non-conference slate ever.

After that, it's Taylor and the Aggies who control their own destiny. And morals.

"I think there's remnants of things that we think are important, and I do think that we have some personnel to shore up maybe some of our weaknesses," Williams said, "but we don't want to go so far one way that we lose track of what we think is important."

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