Buzz Williams shares crazy memory from Rupp Arena involving wife

Texas A&M will take its unbeaten league record on the road to Kentucky on Saturday and when it does, coach Buzz Williams will be reminded of a crazy memory from Rupp Arena.

Well, not from Rupp Arena itself, per se, but of a previous trip to Lexington, Kentucky.

The long-time college basketball coach regaled local media members this week with the tale of the time a scary situation unfolded as his Marquette team was about to take part in the NCAA Tournament.

“The thing I remember most about Lexington was not the game at Kentucky it was in one of our Sweet 16 years, it was our second Sweet 16 year, so Year 4 at Marquette,” Williams explained. “We flew, we landed and my wife said, ‘I’m not feeling very good.’ And I said, ‘Well I’m sorry about that,’ and we get on the bus from the plane and she can’t hardly walk down the stairs. And then we take the bus to the hotel and the hotel’s like connected to the arena.

“And by the time we got to the hotel, Corey couldn’t move and she was just crying. And she’s as tough as I’ve ever been around, and I go, ‘What’s wrong?’ And she goes, ‘Something’s wrong.'”

Wrong enough that it put an immediate halt to Marquette’s plans.

Crazy memory from Rupp Arena involved a hospital trip

By this point, Williams had realized something was seriously wrong with his wife, Corey. He sprang into action.

“And so I stood up on the bus and I go, ‘Hey, everybody off now, get your bags and get off,'” he recalled “So everybody was caught off guard, we just landed. And I tell the bus driver, ‘Carry us to the emergency room.’ So everybody got off except me and Corey. The kids, our children got off. Went to the hospital and the bus couldn’t get under the awning of the emergency room. So we go in the emergency room and it is slam packed. And that was the year that Kentucky played in the NIT. I think they played at Robert Morris. It was that night that they were playing.

“And they were giving Corey morphine in the lobby of the emergency room and she had her appendix removed that morning at 3.”

Like a trooper, Corey recovered pretty quickly and was ready to spring back into action.

Buzz, of course, had other factors in mind.

“We won the first game,” he said. “After the game went and checked her out of the hospital. She goes, ‘I’ll be ready to go to the game tomorrow.’ I said, ‘No, we won this game, you’re not going to be able to come to the game, that’s bad juju, you’re going to stay in the hotel.’ And we played Murray State and it was a home game, in essence, in Lexington.

“When we played (Kentucky while) at Virginia Tech we had 19 turnovers and I thought that that was the difference in the game. My memory is Corey losing her appendix in Lexington, more so than playing at Rupp.”

Here’s to hoping for no last-minute emergency procedures this time around.