Buzz Williams reveals message during final timeout vs. Florida

Texas A&M got back to a .500 record in SEC play this season on Saturday, coming from behind to defeat Florida 67-66 at home to snap the Gators’ four-game winning streak.

Aggies’ guard Tyrece Radford hit a jump shot with 35 seconds remaining in the ballgame to reach a season-high 26 points and give Texas A&M a one-point lead. A lead that they’d hold onto, playing some lock down defense on their final possession of the game to secure the win.

After the game, Texas A&M head coach Buzz Williams was asked what his message to the team was during the final timeout of the game, breaking down the x’s and o’s of the Aggies’ last possession.

“I drew up what I anticipated they would run on a special out-of-bounds under. I talked about if they scored we had no timeouts, that’s the longest stretch of time in my career that we’ve played without a timeout,” Williams said. “So we talked about if they made it what we would do. We talked about what we were going to do off of their action relative to the ball screen and then obviously we talked about we have to finish the possession with a rebound.”

Williams made sure all the bases were covered following the timeout, making sure his players were prepared for every possible outcome thrown there way.

Texas A&M forced a stop following Radford’s go-ahead bucket, but an offensive rebound by the Gators turned jump ball gave the Aggies the ball back with 19 seconds remaining. Normally a player can move freely on the baseline when inbounding a ball after another team scores, but not after earning possession on a jump ball.

So when Aggies guard Wade Taylor IV started moving during the inbound, possession went back to the Gators, giving Florida a second chance to win the game.

“And I don’t know if that’s ever happened in Four’s life, and so the first thing I said when the huddle began was Four do you want to stay in the game because you can’t get past what just happened?” Williams asked Taylor. “He’s like yeah, I’m good. So that was the first thing I said.”

Taylor’s costly mistake did not end up hurting the Aggies, contesting two jump shots on their last defensive possession to complete their 13-point comeback.

The win marked Texas A&M’s third in their last four games, as they’ll look to keep their momentum going against Missouri on Wednesday night in a 9 p.m. ET game airing on ESPN2.