After leading the Aggies to finish the regular season tied for sixth in the conference in a year they were picked to finish 12th, Texas A&M men’s basketball coach Buzz Williams earned SEC Coach of the Year honors from the Associated Press on Tuesday.
In his first year at A&M, Williams led the Aggies to a 16-14 season record, with a 10-8 record against conference opponents.
A&M finished the regular season with two consecutive wins over No. 17 Auburn and Arkansas, and are the seventh-seed heading into the SEC Tournament, where they will face 10-seed Missouri at 6 p.m. on Thursday.
Earlier in the season, this accomplishment looked unlikely as A&M suffered a string of four losses to Harvard, Temple, Fairfield and Texas from Nov. 29 to Dec. 8.
When the team rebounded from those losses with two consecutive wins for a .500 record heading into the winter break, Williams said it was ‘miraculous’ for the Aggies to be 5-5.
After starting SEC play against Arkansas on Jan. 4, the Aggies stayed around the .500 mark, before the two wins at the end of the season pushed them to .533 overall and .556 in the conference.
A three-game win streak against Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi State in mid-February helped the team achieve that feat.