I don't think there's any doubt Bucky is more on board with the donor's and supporters than Buzz ever was . Both were always going to coach the way they were going to coach so to me the question is who has the better basketball approach . I don't know the answer and i think only time will tell but my gut feeling is over the long haul Bucky has the edge . He seems relentless in terms of doing what it takes to have next level success.

If Bucky pulls off putting together a competitive team in yr 1 from next to nothing that will be an impressive accomplishment . Just making the tourney would be a significant accomplishment this year . From what I have seen so far it wouldn't surprise me tho.

I'm a Buzz fan but I thought it an odd hire and a poor fit. He got some close questioning in the presser.

"We need to shoot foul shots if we are going to have a chance".
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Most cannot make sense of statements like this.

Mark Turgeon didn't make it to the NCAAT at Maryland until Year 4 after going there from A&M. That was a different era though in terms of roster building (NIL, Portal, etc) and patience seems lower than ever now.

halfastros81 said:

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Buzz is no moron but his offensive philosophy needs a major reset. I don't hate the guy at all but until and unless he resets his offensive philosophy he's going to be a ..600 wp coach that never makes it any further than the Sweet 16.

We may very well be better off with Bucky . At this very early juncture I even think it's likely we're better off with Bucky

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This is exactly where I'm at. Just thought it was a funny tweet.

Long way to go before Bucky proves he can be as successful as Buzz at this level. That said:

1) The style is obviously completely different
2) His personality seems very different. More open. For example, When a player is injured I now as fan feel like I know when to expect a guy back because Bucky simply answers when asked. Buzz seemed super insular.
3) Recruiting thus far has been very impressive. The way he put a seemingly decent roster together for this Year 1 given the late start was remarkable. Whether that is because of Bucky's style or he immediately connected with donors or was really smart in his staff hires, or all of those reasons, was impressive.

I don't know what eligibility they have left, but what if Payne and Solo regret following Buzz there. Might they come home to Aggieland? Would Bucky want them? They were fun to watch.

halfastros81 said:

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I don't really think he wanted out . He wanted a commitment that the powers that be weren't willing to give and in retrospect they probably were right . He found it elsewhere . Probably worked out best for both Buzz (financially ) and A& M basketball. Only time will tell.

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this could be true if you didnt account for his employment history before us

Did Maryland watch love super clips today?

It is true he has historically moved in 6 yr cycles but tell me you think he wouldn't have stayed here had we matched Maryland's offer . He'd have been a fool not to because that is going to be a high pressure environment relative to here. He's going to have a hard time lasting 5 yrs there imo unless he brings in serious help to get his offensive approach adjusted . The other side of that is he'd have likely had a hard time lasting here another 5 yrs as well.

I do think he knew we weren't going to give him what he was asking for tho or he wouldn't have had his agent shopping him. His agent did some good work for him.

bobinator said:

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I don't think he'd have stayed. I also don't think we particularly wanted him to. It all seemed all but over about midway through last season.

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Well some reports leaked out that Buzz and Trev hadn't spoken all season or something like that. I think you're right that by midway it was set in stone and might have explained this team vs fans vibe that Buzz gave off, capped off by that weird jersey raising ceremony.

I just can't imagine what would have happened if Maryland finds a better candidate, which they were trying to do.

Buzz coming back would have made for interesting season

I was getting really worried that's exactly what was going to happen and we were going to be stuck together for a very fascinating season

I'm curious about your comment that it was essentially done by mid-season. Totally admit I'm not plugged into the prevailing winds wrt that kind of thing. What were the indicators ?

I typed out all the red flags at some point during conference play but can't remember what that thread was. It wasn't any one thing, but just a bunch of small things that made it seem like he was probably looking.

The first big one was the Gregg Doyle article in late January or early February tying him to the Indiana opening. He pretty obviously floated that idea himself.

taylorswift13_ said:

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Absolutely, Buzz's name started to float around for job openings with little merit to it. It was an obvious pathetic ploy to get his name out there. The Jersey retirement felt rushed. There are legends of the game who don't have that honor at various schools. Yet somehow Wade Taylor with 1 tournament win while his season going gets it up there. It was also weird how a story comes out how racist our fanbase is and how people were sending racist messages to his players. Nobody cares about Jace Carter that much lmao. They were forcing a negative story out there that clearly didn't need to be floating around the team during the tournament. Then it was obvious he was using A&M's dime and time to recruit knowing he was leaving. He actively sat around waiting for April 1st to save Maryland some money putting us in a horrible position.

He put all his marbles into one season. He knew he would struggle to rebuild the roster so he cowardly left. He's a good coach and did some great things for us. But a tournament win vs Nebraska and a tournament win against Yale are his biggest accomplishments. 2 all conference players.

A lot of people who worked for A&am didn't have a good opinion about Buzz. He talks one way then completely acts another. He's all talk.

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The Jace Carter thing is pretty uncalled for

Buzz's character is pretty uncalled for

BQ_90 said:

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3 was combo of both. In one of the interviews he did Bucky talked about reaching out Billy Kennedy for advice, he said Billy gave him advice on donors to connect with. Also on staff hires.

Overall,I think Bucky has embraced the current landscape of college basketball. He cited that as primary reason for leaving Samford.

I'm not convinced here Buzz had done that. Those comments about not going to church or out eat because of the fans was very odd to me

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Buzz never got the biggest bma, whether it was BK leaving or just Buzz unliked by the bma from previous stay. Gotta feeling Bucky went to him first.

halfastros81 said:

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It is true he has historically moved in 6 yr cycles but tell me you think he wouldn't have stayed here had we matched Maryland's offer . He'd have been a fool not to because that is going to be a high pressure environment relative to here. He's going to have a hard time lasting 5 yrs there imo unless he brings in serious help to get his offensive approach adjusted . The other side of that is he'd have likely had a hard time lasting here another 5 yrs as well.

I do think he knew we weren't going to give him what he was asking for tho or he wouldn't have had his agent shopping him. His agent did some good work for him.

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Buzz not a big agent guy. Surely he had one helping tho.

There might be a couple people that prefer the old rebound the brick offense and all the jumping around gesticulating from a Danny Devito look a like. I'm not sure any of them are in Maryland though.

BaytownAg13 said:

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I also dont miss these terrible screens. It's so ugly to watch them on offense.

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That reminds me of the first Texas game (at home) last year. We were there and I'm yelling out. "Can anyone set a screen?!" lol

Had to imo.

We had been bad at screening since Turgeon left. Truly awful at it.

Federiko and Agee can set some solid screens, especially off the ball to free up our shooters!

taylorswift13_ said:

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Buzz's character is pretty uncalled for

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People acting like you can be a complete saint while heading a DIVISION 1 BASKETBALL PROGRAM are absolutely insufferable

It's a dirty game. He's a good dude but quirky. He's not perfect or close to it. No one has said he is. He's no longer here and he's doing what is best for Maryland hoops as he should. When we hired Bucky we would've been pissed if he didn't bring guys with him like he did with Holloway. Thats college sports right now

Yeah that's an early thing I'm loving. We are creating space both off the bounce and using screens and picks and timely passes. That's something we haven't had in a hot minute.

BQ_90 said:

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halfastros81 said:

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Buzz is no moron but his offensive philosophy needs a major reset. I don't hate the guy at all but until and unless he resets his offensive philosophy he's going to be a ..600 wp coach that never makes it any further than the Sweet 16.

We may very well be better off with Bucky . At this very early juncture I even think it's likely we're better off with Bucky

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I think we are better off. Now that doesn't mean we win anything more than Buzz won here. But we got away from a coach without paying a huge buyout. I think the biggest benefit is we have a coach that has engaged the donors to get support. I'm not sure Buzz was all in on that.

I'm not sure how Beard would have been received here with all his baggage and giant salary commitment. Also I'm not sure if Beard didn't use us to get more money from Ole Miss

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We have a coach who prefers coaching basketball to reading books. That's an upgrade

I still don't get this book thing. So if Buzz only cared about that how does he beat no 1 Auburn at home or Bama year before. He won at a good clip here. His style just wasn't going take you deep in post season. IDK I just think of all,the things to not like about buzz the book thing to me is the oddest

BQ_90 said:

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I still don't get this book thing. So if Buzz only cared about that how does he beat no 1 Auburn at home or Bama year before. He won at a good clip here. His style just wasn't going take you deep in post season. IDK I just think of all,the things to not like about buzz the book thing to me is the oddest

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They don't actually dislike that he reads. People just like to make themselves feel better by attacking low hanging fruit. They think coaches can't have hobbies

If he brought up that he likes cooking meals with the team they'd attack that too

bobinator said:

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Yeah I disagree with a lot of what you said too, but people can feel however they want to feel.

The best Buzz times were some of the best we've had but we've moved on now.

We're trying a completely different kind of weird basketball but at least this one is more fun to watch.

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Buzz doubled the dribble drive on defense, put pressure on the ball and presumed that late in the shot clock, most college players would miss the weakside 3.

On offense, Buzz had trouble recruiting great consistent shooters, so we obviously hit the offensive boards better than anyone.

The calculus for Buzz was to create more opportunities to score through rebounding, challenging interior shots without fouling.

Bucky creates more opportunities through the full court pressure and steals. It's a miniscule sample size at two games, but we are #8 in creating steals on defense.

We're taking 47.7% of our shots as 3s and making 36.5%. Because many of our 2s are off steals or motion offense (62.5% FG) the combination gives us a 60.2% Effective FG. It's defense to create great offense. That obviously will be blunted with tougher opponents. Still, the calculus is a Vegas winner. And if you can go 10 deep and play at this pace, the high tempo (19th) and 75 possessions a game is simply good Moneyball.

Another perk of the faster pace is that in college our opponents will be more winded and will miss more FTs. Last year, TAMU opponents had a very high FT% make. this could be bad luck, but not over 30+ games. The shooters at the FT lines were not as tired and had better form.

We have OK State, UCF, Florida State, Pitt in the next month. We'll see if we can enforce our game on top 100 teams. There are going to be bumps along the way. My *guess* is that practices are so rigorous that we can keep our heads during the big games. We'll see.

DukeMu said:

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bobinator said:

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Yeah I disagree with a lot of what you said too, but people can feel however they want to feel.

The best Buzz times were some of the best we've had but we've moved on now.

We're trying a completely different kind of weird basketball but at least this one is more fun to watch.

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Buzz doubled the dribble drive on defense, put pressure on the ball and presumed that late in the shot clock, most college players would miss the weakside 3.

On offense, Buzz had trouble recruiting great consistent shooters, so we obviously hit the offensive boards better than anyone.

The calculus for Buzz was to create more opportunities to score through rebounding, challenging interior shots without fouling.

Bucky creates more opportunities through the full court pressure and steals. It's a miniscule sample size at two games, but we are #8 in creating steals on defense.

We're taking 47.7% of our shots as 3s and making 36.5%. Because many of our 2s are off steals or motion offense (62.5% FG) the combination gives us a 60.2% Effective FG. It's defense to create great offense. That obviously will be blunted with tougher opponents. Still, the calculus is a Vegas winner. And if you can go 10 deep and play at this pace, the high tempo (19th) and 75 possessions a game is simply good Moneyball.

Another perk of the faster pace is that in college our opponents will be more winded and will miss more FTs. Last year, TAMU opponents had a very high FT% make. this could be bad luck, but not over 30+ games. The shooters at the FT lines were not as tired and had better form.

We have OK State, UCF, Florida State, Pitt in the next month. We'll see if we can enforce our game on top 100 teams. There are going to be bumps along the way. My *guess* is that practices are so rigorous that we can keep our heads during the big games. We'll see.

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Opponents shooting a high free throw percentage was not due to them being less fatigued

It was mostly we fouled the wrong people, often guards. Mixed in with a little bad luck

Buzz did not seem to enjoy Aggieland…sour puss demeanor. Did adequately at A&M but bottom line only won 2 ncaa tourney games in 6 years…which is what matters. I look and listen to coaches like Ford, Morrison, Elko and now Bucky and the seem to enjoy the challenge at A&M. Bucky seems to understand that although football is and always will be King, he seems to view that as a challenge to make the sport more popular, even if it's always gonna be second or third fiddle to football and baseball. Being an Aggie coach is different…there's a culture you have to embrace or you're out of place. Good luck to buzz…I for one, wasn't even a little bit upset he left.