Could Buzz Williams depart and leave Texas A&M basketball searching for a coach this offseason?
When Texas A&M basketball hired Buzz Williams back in 2019, it was extremely difficult to find a hotter name on the coaching market. Williams came ever-so-close to eliminating Zion Williamson and Duke from March Madness with his rough-and-tumble Virginia Tech team, and his reputation as a strong defensive coach was well-known.
Given that he had been an assistant previously at Texas A&M, it seemed like the perfect fit. After all, Aggie fans though, just think about what kind of noise he would be able to make with the kind of talent that would be in College Station!
Of course, the best laid plans of mice and men and all that. Here, six years later, Buzz has amassed two SEC championship appearances— not wins— and two wins in the NCAA Tournament. Oh, and a deep run in the NIT.
Now, I don't want to undersell what Buzz Williams has accomplished in College Station. He has built a program that has achieved some great things in the regular season, delivering the Aggies' first ever win over a number one and a number two-ranked squad.
But that's precisely the issue: these achievements have not come when it really matters. The Aggies have been unable to make a deep run into March in any of Williams' years at the helm.
And if there were any season in which that would happen, it was this one. This was a senior-laden team that was more well-balanced than anything that Buzz had had previously— and the Aggies still fell in the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament.
There has been some pretty palpable chatter that Buzz could be on his way out after this season. There were some job openings around the country that Aggie fans were thinking he could be a candidate for, but most of those have closed.
The more likely scenario is that there is simply a mutual parting of ways, as Buzz may just decide to ride off into the sunset. This is a time in which it makes sense to do so, with Wade, Henry, Manny, and the rest of this senior group headed out the door.
Or, he could stick around and build around Pharell Payne, who has really emerged down the stretch, and Solomon Washington in their final year. I think that it would be prohibitively difficult to build a squad around those two guys that matches or bests this past year's team, but that's just me.
So, is this the end of the road for Buzz in College Station? Or will he stick it out? I'm not sure things have ever been murkier for the head man's future in his time in Aggieland.
Though the chatter was strong last month, I'm still not convinced that Buzz has decided to depart. While it's not unrealistic, I think he's more likely to stay put than jump ship. It's a situation to monitor, and one that will be hard to engage with objectively in the wake of this loss, but it's something to watch closely here in the upcoming weeks.