Buzz Williams breaks down Texas A&M's approach around the rim

Texas A&M currently sits at 13-8 and 4-4 in SEC play, firmly on the NCAA Tournament bubble and looking to play its way into the field over the final stretch of the season.

Coach Buzz Williams sees some encouraging trends with his team in terms of picking up what he wants to do, and it’s making the team much more dangerous.

“I can give you this number and it’ll help,” Williams said on his weekly radio show. “We’re No. 1 in the SEC in defending the rim. And I understand according to a lot of people we need to be taller. But with our short guys in the SEC we’re No. 1 at defending the rim. Also in Division I we’re the 14th best team at defending the rim. I know we need to be taller, but with our short guys we’re 14th in the country at the percentage of shots we allow teams to shoot in the chart circle.”

That singular focus has been driving Texas A&M’s play of late. Protect the rim defensively and attack it on the other end. Getting layups and free throws is key.

And the way the Aggies do it, they tend to come away with a pretty big advantage in terms of free throw numbers in most games.

“On that point, regardless of what post-game press conferences coaches have to say, most fouls occur when your team is in rotation,” Buzz Williams said. “You’re in rotation because no coach wants to allow shots at the rim. So to some degree, without explaining it all, we go ahead and get someone at the rim so that there’s no confusion. And because of that, that prevents rim shots, which to some degree we hope prevents us fouling.”

Recent games have put A&M’s theory to the test, too. In a game against Florida on Saturday, Texas A&M piled up a whopping 20-2 advantage in free throw attempts in the second half.

In a game that ended 67-66 in favor of the Aggies, those free throws made all the difference. But Williams said the calls were perfectly justified based on how his team plays around the rim.

“A lot of times when you hear coaches complain about the disparity, the heart of the disparity is really this conversation we’re having,” Buzz Williams said. “But because Twitter is powerful and most people have no idea what you and I are currently talking about, they say that the officials are terrible. I’m not disagreeing about officials, I’m just saying I’ve coached 550 games and I’ve never said that. Because I think like anything else, the surface level of something is probably just the easiest answer. It may not be what the truth is.”

Williams came well-equipped to have the discussion on his radio program. He had facts to back himself up.

“Prior to Saturday in our three wins opponents — they have officials in those games too — opponents shoot 13 free throws,” Buzz Williams said. “In our four losses going into Saturday — officials are in those too — they shoot 23 free throws. As I told you on Saturday before the game, before I knew what the numbers of the Florida game were going to be — not saying I have the answers, nor am I saying I am a good coach, I’m not saying that — but I mentioned to you that that was going to be a key that was an underlying number that nobody knew that we spent talking to our guys about.

“So in the game, despite there were officials there, and despite what was posted on the Internet, they shot 11, which is in the range that we want that is important to us on numbers that nobody else studies. And we shot the same number that we averaged in the wins.”

In other words: Our system is working.

Williams didn’t want to reveal all the intricacies, but it’s safe to say he believes he’s found something important and is working with his team to exploit it as much as possible.

“We’ve been practicing that each day and I’ve been encouraged by the growth hopefully in that regard,” Buzz Williams said. “And hopefully over the next nine games the opportunities continue, because there’s going to be officials at those games. So we’re going to continue to practice how to do those things, but just do them at a better rate.”