Corey: Williams Provides Spark For Blue Devils

DURHAM, N.C. ? College freshmen aren't supposed to be this self-aware.

“Throughout the season I knew I had a lot of work to do,” says Elliot Williams, Duke's adrenaline shot of a shooting guard from Memphis, Tennessee who had spent much of the season bogged down in the bottom-half of the depth chart.

College freshmen aren't supposed to be this good, either. But since being plucked off the bench and plopped into the starting lineup against St. John's February 19th, Williams has been nothing short of phenomenal. Shooting an other-worldly 65% from the floor and averaging 11.6 points in that undefeated five-game stretch, the McDonald's All-American has resuscitated a Blue Devil team that had lost four out of six games, but has since blossomed thanks in large part to the spark Williams has brought to the court.

“Being a freshman at Duke is not an easy thing,” Williams says. “Academically, it's a tough institution. But having guys like [Student Life and Campus Relations Coordinator] Kenny King to help you with the academics--that made the transition a lot easier. Basketball-wise, it's tough being a freshman and sitting a lot. But I learned a great deal; it made me better. I feel that I learned a lot by watching guys like Gerald and Jon: what they do on the court, where they go and when. And ultimately, that made me a better player.”

That studiousness has paid great dividends, as has Williams' desire to earn every minute of playing time that has come his way rather than to mire himself in the quicksand of self-pity that too often suffocates the development of high school stars expectant of ample playing time at the onset of their college careers. That isn't to say Williams didn't want to have more of an impact earlier this year, nor is it to say that he wasn't capable of contributing. But with as experienced and talented a lineup as Duke has had in recent years, the coaching staff had the luxury of easing Williams into an ever-malleable rotation, allowing him to flourish in time on the practice court, rather than flounder in trial by fire.

“I don't think in any other program you match our level of competitiveness in practice, our day-to-day workouts. I enjoy that,” Williams says. “That's one of the things that I enjoy about this institution and basketball program. Every day it's competitive on the court and you have to go out and prove yourself and get better.”

That fire in Williams' belly has always been there, but it went from a smolder to a blaze as the season wore on and his playing time did not increase. And perhaps no one played a more important role in helping Williams channel that frustration into motivation than Gerald Henderson.

“We ended up being road roommates, so that's where it probably started,” Williams says. “He saw some potential in me, and took me aside and just told me a lot of things he learned as a freshman at Duke. We were pretty similar as freshmen: coming in, how things went along. So he told me just to keep my head up, gave me pointers, and shared some things that he'd do on the court to make himself more effective. He's a great player, and that's one of the things that made me stay after practices and keep working. I've always had a great work ethic, but I noticed that he and Coach Carrawell, they were always working out after practice, hours and hours. And I just said to myself, ?Man, if I want to be good, I have to do the same things he's doing.'”

So he began daily workouts after practice with Nate James, working on everything from defensive positioning to ball-handling to attacking the basket.

“They're pretty intense,” Elliot says of the post-practice voluntary sessions. “We really start off with a lot of driving moves, just a lot of driving, getting past my defender, and what to do then. The big difference between college and high school is that defenders take a lot more charges in college. In high school when I beat my man I could go in and dunk. Now I have to focus on floaters and things like that. I'm also working on getting ready for catch and shoot. That's one of the things about playing with a lot of players at Duke: I get a chance to do that a lot.”

When those opportunities to score have come, Williams has taken advantage of them, taking high-percentage shots and making them most of the time. That ability to get to the basket has given opponents fits, making the Blue Devils' well-known Cerberic attack of Henderson, Jon Scheyer and Kyle Singler all the more difficult to defend because it's no longer just a three-headed monster.

After Duke's defeat of Maryland last week, the Terps' Eric Hayes singled out Williams as one of the reasons Duke was so difficult to stop: no one player could stop Elliot from penetrating, and the added weapon was too much for Maryland's help defense to handle.

But Williams has made just as many strides on the other side of the ball, having become one of Duke's better on-ball defenders over the course of the season. In that same trip to College Park, for example, Williams had the onerous task of slowing Maryland's guileful scorer, Greivas Vasquez. The Terps' notoriously gabby point guard?earlier this year, he called Cameron Indoor Stadium “his house”?was silenced in more ways than one, scoring just 10 points in a foul-riddled performance.

Williams' value extends beyond the fundamentals, however. He also possesses game-changing explosiveness, a trait that has helped Duke seize the momentum in each of the past five games by quelling opponents on the court--and in the stands. There's no better way to quiet hostile crowds than to throw down a heavy-handed dunk. And though Williams does it well, he says he's still got a lot to learn from the best.

“Gerald's a freak athlete. Jumping-wise, he's done some things I've never seen anyone else do. I feel Gerald's a better game-dunker, he's so powerful getting it up and throwing it down. I'm more of a springy dunker. I get off the floor real quick.”

He gets off the floor real high, too. With a vertical leap measured at 44 inches, Williams outpaces Henderson and fellow freshman Olek Czyz by two inches. But that physical gift is only worth as much as his ability to utilize it in game situations and Williams has every intention of learning how to better use that skill to gain an advantage over his opponents.

Still unsure of exactly what he'll be up to this summer, he only knows this for certain: “I'm going to be in the gym a lot.” Saying he wants to come in to next season with a body reinforced with more size and muscle, Williams wants to focus on perfecting his jump shot and to continue the evolution of his game since high school. If the improvement is as dramatic as the strides he's made since matriculating at Duke, Williams could be one of the top players in the country next season. But as he knows full well, such progress only comes in good time.

“The game has slowed down a lot since November,” Williams says. “When I first got here it was real fast, felt real fast for me. But the more I learned things, the more I just--the game just slows down for you. That's when you realize you're getting better.”

And Duke has gotten better right along with him.

The views expressed in this column are solely those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of Duke University or the Duke University Department of Athletics.