Texas A&M basketball has never been quite as good as the football team. That said, the athletic department has done a strong job of hiring coaches in this millennium who can bring the team to the NCAA Tournament and give them a chance, however small, of winning a national title.
Billy Gillispie was the first. He took this program to heights that it had not seen since the late 70s. Unfortunatley, he’d leave for the Kentucky basketball head coaching position and send his players a text message to tell them the news.
He left a sour taste in all Aggies’ fans mouths. Thankfully though, this program found its next best head coach — a guy who was able to maintain a relatively strong level of sucess for the program in Mark Turgeon.
Turgeon won at least 24 games in every season as head coach of the Texas A&M football team and completely changed the basketball culture in College Station. That said, he would eventually leave after four seasons for the Maryland head coaching job.
Texas A&M basketball’s modern era began after Turgeon’s departure
After Turgeon left, they would hire another Billy. This time, it was Billy Kennedy. Kennedy did a solid job with the program, keeping it at a higher level of play than they had seen prior to the 2000s, but he couldn’t keep up with the standard set by Turgeon.
He would eventually be fired after a 14-18 season. He would, not so enthusiastically, pass the torch to Buzz Williams. And at the beginning, Williams did a decent job as head coach. In his first year, he’d miss the NCAA Tournament, but bring this school a winning record.
Unfortunately, this wouldn’t last. In year two, Williams was faced with a handful of issues that second-year head coaches shouldn’t have to deal with. COVID-19 caused this team to deal with abnormal circumstances and TAMU basketball suffered as a result.
That said, there’s no excuse for this team to finish the year with a 2-8 conference record. The Aggies worked to hard to get their basketball program to where it is just to revert back into being a perennial loser.
Buzz Williams will be facing a make-or-break season in 2021. In all likelihood, COVID-19 will no longer be a factor, so if he cannot get Texas A&M basketball back to winning ways, there’s no reason that he should remain in his position.
If Billy Kennedy was fired for a single losing season, you can guarantee that Williams will get the boot for two consecutively.