Billy Kennedy’s Texas A&M tenure ended with the Aggies men’s basketball team going 14-18 overall and 6-12 in SEC play for the 2018-19 season. One year later, Buzz Williams has the SEC hoops community talking about the turnaround in College Station.

On Saturday, Williams’ squad defeated Arkansas 77-69 to finish the 2019-20 regular season 16-14 overall and 10-8 in conference play. Texas A&M’s focus shifts to the SEC tournament in Nashville, but on Saturday night, the 10-win SEC season was a popular topic of conversation.

“What’s transpired here is historical, not that we won 10 games, what’s transpired here is transformational for (the players’) life and their willingness to change and do it as a group and the fight and togetherness that they play with the winning is just a byproduct of that,” Williams said in the middle of a lengthy, reflective answer during his postgame press conference.

Williams acknowledged that many experts saw Texas A&M basketball as a rebuilding project with the need for Williams to elevate the “talent ceiling” and install his players through recruiting. He explained why the “talent ceiling” didn’t tell the whole story for the 2019-20 squad.

“There is a ceiling to the talent of our roster and then people say, ‘well Buzz you are going to get your guys in here.’ So, are you saying that the ceiling is going to improve because of their talent? Yeah but here’s the problem there is no ceiling to someone’s hunger and to someone’s drive to be the best they can be,” Williams said. “So, you can sign all these guys that the people that live with their grandmother in their basement rank the players and go ‘man we are going to be really good.’ Maybe so, but this group of guys I mean this without arrogance they’ve beaten a lot of those teams and they’ve beat those teams not because of their talent they’ve beat those teams because many times in life what’s invisible is the most important.”

Texas A&M faces Missouri on Thursday in Nashville.

[H/T GigEm247]