Texas A&M head coach Buzz Williams praises John Calipari, breaks down Kentucky

Not only is Buzz Williams a terrific basketball coach, but he’s also someone who draws the ears of anyone in his vicinity — and that’s why I’ve gathered you all here today.

Now in his fourth season in charge of Texas A&M, Williams is off to his best start with the Aggies yet, riding a 5-0 SEC start (13-5 overall) into Rupp Arena on Saturday afternoon. Ahead of that showdown against a surging Kentucky squad, he had plenty to say about the Wildcats and head coach John Calipari. During his pregame press conference on Friday, Williams spoke with reporters to give a thorough breakdown of the UK roster while praising Coach Calipari and the program as a whole along the way.

Kentucky struggled to begin the 2022-23 season, culminating with a historically bad loss against South Carolina 10 days ago. However, a resurgence has taken place over the last week with an upset road victory over No. 5 Tennessee followed by a tough home win over Georgia. Calipari has heard plenty of criticism throughout it all (including some praise as of late), but Williams commended the UK head coach for taking on a job he doesn’t think anyone else in the hoops world could pull off.

“It’s arguably the best basketball job at any level over the last, whatever, 100 years, in my opinion,” Williams said of being the head coach at Kentucky. “I think it’s just because of the exposure that the program gets that maybe everything is overdramatized. I don’t think there is a better coach in modern-day basketball than the coach at Kentucky. He’s literally the only candidate I’m aware of that could do what that job requires.”

This season — especially if Kentucky continues to trend in the right direction — has served as the perfect example of why Williams is likely correct.

Williams breaks down the ‘Cats

During his press conference, Williams, who is 0-3 all-time against UK, spent a good chunk of time breaking down what he knows about Kentucky’s on-court personnel. He highlighted the Wildcats’ defensive prowess, pointing to that as the main reason they took down Tennessee last weekend in Knoxville. Interestingly enough, Williams only refers to opposing players by their jersey number, so Oscar Tshiebwe is known as “34”, Cason Wallace as “22”, and so on.

“34 (Tshiebwe) is national player of the year, reigning national player of the year,” Williams said. “Not sure how many times that’s happened over the last two or three decades. He had 37 (points) and 23 (rebounds) in their last game against Georgia. I thought their game at Tennessee last week was a really, really good game. 22 (Wallace) is arguably the best perimeter in our league. 0 (Jacob Toppin) doesn’t get the credit he deserves because so much attention is drawn to 34.

“They can’t take 1 (CJ Fredrick) off the floor, I think he’s the lynchpin to what they do. I think 2’s (Sahvir Wheeler) injury has probably, that’s been a part of the hiccup that they had. 2 is their engine and they rely on him. 12 (Antonio Reeves) — I know 24 (Chris Livingston) starts, but 12 is playing 30-plus minutes and his efficiency numbers are through the roof. Their success at home with that type of an environment, and you could argue over the last week they’re playing as well as anybody in the league.”

Williams pays close attention to advanced statistics, using them to help flesh out his game plan. Against the ‘Cats, he obviously plans to focus on Tshiebwe first and foremost, but his two main keys to the game for Texas A&M are finishing possessions with defensive rebounds and defending without fouling. Williams mentioned how Tshiebwe is hauling in 20.4 percent of his team’s misses on offense, second-best in the entire country, per KenPom. For comparison, no rotational Texas A&M player is at higher than 11 percent.

“We’ve got to prevent them from getting second shots,” Williams said. “In the last two games, they’re shooting 28 free throws a game, and in our last game we shot seven. Can we defend without fouling and then can we finish the possession with the rebound?”

If Texas A&M can accomplish both of those, the Aggies will have more than a chance to pull off the upset. Knowing that, keep in mind that Texas A&M is among the SEC’s best in preventing opposing teams from snagging offensive boards, but one of the worst in avoiding foul trouble.

You can hear everything Williams had to say below, including an interesting (and slightly scary) story about his most memorable trip to Lexington from about a decade ago. Tipoff between Kentucky and Texas A&M is scheduled for 2:00 p.m. EST on Saturday afternoon inside Rupp Arena. It will be broadcast live on ESPN.