COLLEGE PARK — University of Maryland President Darryll Pines has gotten to know Buzz Williams pretty well over the past week.

He helped hand-pick the 52-year-old as the next coach of the Maryland men’s basketball team, hired away from Texas A&M. He introduced Williams to Terps officials, fans and media inside Xfinity Center on Wednesday afternoon. And afterward, he had no doubts over whether Williams was better positioned to lift the program’s floor or ceiling.

“I think both. We think that the sky’s the limit for Coach Williams,” Pines said. “I think he’s going to try to excel in our environment, really, to the highest level, and the highest level is to get to the Final Four.”

A week ago, Maryland was hoping Kevin Willard would take Maryland there for the first time in over two decades. But his awkward exit for Villanova last weekend led to Williams’ accelerated arrival in College Park. Here are seven takeaways from his introductory news conference.

Searching far and wide — and fast

Interim athletic director Colleen Sorem, who conducted the search with Pines, said Maryland considered over 30 candidates. The Terps’ hire had to meet certain criteria, Sorem said: a track record of success as a head coach; postseason experience; familiarity with local recruiting grounds; and experience with the sport’s name, image and likeness and revenue-sharing landscape. Character, leadership and passion for the program were also important.

“One name immediately rose to the top, a man that checked all of our boxes,” Sorem said.

Boosters suggested other candidates, but “only one name was on everyone’s list,” Sorem said: Williams.

The athletic department did not use a search firm, but Pines said he and Sorem consulted “many” resources and experts. Former men’s basketball coach Gary Williams said he spoke to Sorem and Pines at points during the process, which officially started with Willard’s weekend departure and ended with the school’s Tuesday afternoon announcement.

“It was their decision, but I’m very happy with their decision,” Gary Williams said.

Pines pointed to a viral video clip from Texas A&M’s loss to Michigan in the second round of the NCAA tournament. At the Aggies’ postgame news conference, guard Manny Obaseki called Buzz Williams “one of the greatest people you will ever meet. He’s one of the greatest coaches of all time, in basketball in general. He’s changed my life. He’s changed each and every one of our lives. I’m so thankful for him.”

After the clip played at Wednesday’s news conference, Pines said: “What better testament to the man that is Buzz Williams than to hear directly from one of your own players.”

‘Unstable’ roster build

Buzz Williams said he met with his Maryland team Wednesday morning. He declined to share “locker room things” but said he “just wanted to give them a platform to give me advice.” He understood the volatility of the situation. Only two Maryland players with eligibility remaining — star freshman center Derik Queen, a projected top pick in the NBA draft, and seldom-used sophomore guard Chance Stephens — have not entered their name into the transfer portal as of Wednesday evening.

“They’ve been through a lot of success, and the last few days, it’s very unsettling, it’s unstable,” Williams said. “And so I gave them the commitment that I just mentioned: If I can help you, I’ll help you. And if that means it’s here, we’ll figure that out. If that means it’s somewhere else, that’s OK, too.”

Maryland will likely lose All-Big Ten Conference selection Ja’Kobi Gillespie to the transfer portal, and fellow starting guard Rodney Rice, a Maryland native, could also be lured away from College Park. Williams said he hadn’t had time to fully evaluate the roster, nor had he recruited anyone over the past day and a half.

But he added: “At some point, maybe today, I can get to it.”

‘At peace’ with resources

Willard’s public push for more program resources made headlines during the NCAA tournament, but Williams sidestepped a question about whether the athletic department had made any assurances during its search process. He said he didn’t know what had happened with Willard until Pines told him, and that he was “at peace” with the situation.

“I didn’t hear all of it, nor do I think all of it’s important,” Williams said. “But relative to what I thought was important on the commitment going forward, on what is needed to be successful at the highest level, there was never any question from them on the commitment for us — me, the staff, NIL, the players, the resources, the Gossett Center.”

Sorem said Maryland intends to compete for conference and national titles, “because that’s what Maryland basketball’s all about.” She also said the school will “provide the resources Buzz needs to win, and we will win.”

“You know how you build a roster?” Gary Williams asked. “Have a lot of money, because any question you get in recruiting is, if not the first, it’s the second question: ‘How much?’ And that’s a big part of recruiting. It’s different.”

Putting the team first

When Mark Turgeon was introduced as coach in 2011, he said his “style of play is winning.”

When Willard was introduced as coach in 2022, he vowed to “bring the swag back to Maryland basketball.”

Williams didn’t fill his news conference with many quotes fit for a T-shirt. He just talked about “the team” a lot. Like, a lot. He said “team” or “teams” at least three dozen times over the 20-plus minutes he spent introducing himself or answering questions.

“There’s something that’s life-changing about being on a team,” Williams said. “And so to have the opportunity to be on this team means the world to me, but I also understand the magnitude and the mantle that it is to be the steward of that team, and I do not take any portion of it on the floor, off the floor, in any sort of arrogant way.

“Teams change us. Teams grow us up. We have to learn how to be a great teammate. We have to learn how to help win. There’s different measurements on winning. It’s easy to figure it out when there’s a scoreboard, but not everything in life has a scoreboard, and everybody believes winning is a little different as it relates to when there’s not one. But we all know that being on a team grows us up. Being on a team helps flush out selfishness. Being on a team helps us to learn how to lead ourselves and lead others better. And so of all of the change that’s happening in college athletics … to talk about what has been created for all of the teams we’ve been on, those are some of the fondest memories we ever have had.”

Willard’s abrupt and acrimonious departure for Villanova provided one backdrop for Williams’ comments. Maryland’s show of solidarity inside Xfinity Center provided another; next to Gary Williams near the front of the news conference were program legend Juan Dixon, football coach Mike Locksley and women’s basketball coach Brenda Frese.

“It was very important for everyone to be here that’s a part of this Terp family,” Dixon said. “We’re showing support because we know that we have the right guy to lead our program moving forward. Of course, we want to win championships, whether it’s Big Ten, national, but when it comes to the development of men, right, galvanizing this fanbase, he has the personality to do it.”

Not ‘married’ to a style

Asked about his vision for the Terps’ playing style, Buzz Williams joked that he knew what he was supposed to say: a fast pace, a lot of wins, a big and happy culture.

But Williams acknowledged that the structure of his teams is hard to pin down. Some have shot the ball well. Others have rebounded well. The style of his Maryland teams, he said, would depend not only on the team he builds but also what he thinks will work in the Big Ten.

“I think what I’ve learned as a coach is in this ever-changing model, you have to have skill to be able to coach a lot of different ways,” he said. “And I think the coaches that I’ve studied that are married to their style, I don’t know that that’s sustainable in what this model has become.

“I know what’s important from an intangible standpoint on being in our locker room and the pace at which we work and the care which is intended for the process. We’ve adapted our style of play at each institution. We haven’t been great, but we’ve been fairly consistent. And we have walked into scenarios where you are starting from ground zero and somewhat created and manufactured a way to be OK, and we always want to do better.”

Willard’s roller coaster

The specter of Willard’s exit hung over the entire news conference. He was not mentioned by name until nearly a half-hour into the event, when Williams alluded to Willard’s public spat with the athletic department. Sorem’s opening remarks included the closest acknowledgment of the roller-coaster ride Willard had led them down.

“What a 10 days it’s been,” she said.

Gary Williams appeared to take issue with Willard’s public relations strategy during his NCAA tournament run — “If you have trouble with your family, you don’t go out to the Starbucks and say, ‘Hey, I’m really having trouble with my wife’” — and play-by-play voice Johnny Holiday expressed relief that the program had moved on to a coach more willing to publicize the team.

Even with Buzz Williams’ peripatetic career, moving from Marquette to Virginia Tech to Texas A&M to now Maryland in just over a decade-long span, Gary Williams was optimistic that the Terps’ new coach was committed for the long haul.

“I was at American [University] for four years, Boston College for four, Ohio State three, and then I came here for 22,” he said. “And I hope Buzz does the same thing.”

AD search to start soon

Pines said Maryland hopes to hire an athletic director within the next six to eight weeks. A search committee will be assembled shortly, and more information will be released next week.

Sorem, who was promoted to interim athletic director after Damon Evans left for the same position at Southern Methodist last month, will likely be considered. Pines said he “could not have found a better partner in doing this” search than Sorem, who previously served as the athletic department’s senior deputy athletic director and chief operating officer.

“I had complete confidence in her abilities to lead the athletic department in this time period,” Pines said. “And that confidence has only strengthened as we have navigated this process together, unexpectedly, over the last 12 days. Her professionalism and methodical approach to this search process is the reason we are all here today, celebrating this new hire.”