As soon as the plane landed on Wednesday afternoon in College Station, new Texas A&M basketball coach Buzz Williams went to work immediately.
Williams went to Reed Arena to meet with the team followed by a tour of the arena, which he hasn’t been in since he left to become the University of New Orleans head coach in 2006.
“It was intense,” sophomore guard TJ Starks said about the meeting. “He has a lot of energy. He’s coming in and trying to make a change. He showed his love. It was good for us to meet him last night and get that experience under our belt.”
Thursday morning Williams watched the players work out and said he wants to build relationships with them based on trust, love and work.
“I don’t want to ever have preconceived ideas on the roster,” Williams said. “I don’t want to have preconceived ideas on the talent on the roster. I like parts of what I see. I know that there’s a lot of work in front of where we’re at, not only with our current roster, but what our future rosters need to be.”
Williams has not made any new hires since arriving in Aggieland, citing that he takes his time making new additions with personnel.
“I have some ideas,” Williams said. “We’ve made some progress in the last 36 hours in regards to that. It is not full. It won’t be full for a long time.”
All four players from former A&M head coach Billy Kennedy’s recruiting class in 2019 have been granted releases from their National Letters of Intent, and will be able to talk to new schools following the end of the dead period — a period where coaches are unable to talk to recruits and attend their games. Williams said that he will try to talk to those players, and that he still has a lot of players to sign.
Overall, Williams said returning to College Station was an eye-opening experience because of the new additions to the university and athletic stadiums.
“Just incredibly honored, grateful, overwhelmed with good emotion,” Williams said. “Hard to articulate it, not smart enough to articulate it in the right way. But incredibly thankful for the opportunity, for my family and I to be a part of Aggieland and all that comes with it.  And excited. Very excited.”