Williams must produce if UConn is to be special
Christyn Williams was the 2017 Gatorade National Player of the Year. There has been so much Paige this, so much Paige that, maybe we forget it at times.
Maybe we shouldn’t be too eager to turn the page.
Megan Walker won the Gatorade award as the nation’s best high school player the year before Williams did, and Williams had to play a complementary role with Walker and Crystal Dangerfield during their senior seasons last year.
With Bueckers arriving to much hoopla and proving, yes, she may even be better than advertised, much of the laser focus has been on the freshman from Minnesota or the young team’s overall development. There’s a temptation to pull that laser focus off the junior from Arkansas. That would be a mistake. If UConn is to make a run at another Final Four, a run at a 12th national title, Williams must produce — in a big way.
Yes, Olivia Nelson-Ododa has to prove her mettle in the post. Yes, the team has a few more scoring options than last year, indicative in six players hitting double figures Saturday in a 106-59
rout of Xavier at Gampel Pavilion. This team is proving to be unselfish.
Yet points have to come from somewhere, and the most have to come from Williams. To do that, she must be efficient, more efficient than she was last year and in two of the three first UConn games.
That’s why Saturday was a good day for Christyn Williams, and not only because of her 24 points.
Williams scored her career high of 28 points as long ago as Dec. 3, 2018, in the win over No. 1 Notre Dame. She showed as a freshman she wasn’t afraid of the big stage.
It was the efficiency that shone against Xavier. It was the 8-for-11 shooting. It was the 4 for 5 from the 3-point line. Williams had 17 points at halftime, drove to the hoop, hit a 3, hit a pair of free throws and had 24 points only three minutes into the second half.
She didn’t take another shot. She could have had 35. That’s how hot she was. That’s how good her decision-making was.
The greater goal? Efficiency, coach Geno Auriemma said:
“It doesn’t matter whether you get 15 shots or 20 shots, you have to be efficient. You have to shoot a high percentage.
“The way you shoot a high percentage is you take great shots and the appropriate shot at the appropriate time. That’s a sign of a good offensive player who is starting to figure it out.”
Auriemma has this conversation all the time with his players.
“Basketball is not a game of how to, it is a game of when to,” he said. “If you can make the 3, no, you know how to make them. If you can’t make a pass, no, you know how to make it. It’s when do you make that pass? When do you make that drive? When? When do you take that open 3? When do you have to kick it? As we play more games and she stays aggressive, that’s only going to get better and better.”
When the words economical and efficient are introduced into the conversation, Williams’ name hasn’t necessarily jumped to the front of your mind. Yes, she shot 49.9 percent as a freshman, including 36.7 from 3. Last year her numbers dropped to 45.7 and .333. She was 2 for 9 and 2 for 12 in the losses to Oregon and South Carolina.
In a harsh self-assessment in November she called it the worst season of basketball she had ever
played.
“I was just in a really bad place,” Williams said that day. “I have high expectations for myself. I did not meet those expectations last year … really nothing was going right, and I wasn’t mature enough yet to just take it one game at a time.”
Still, she averaged 14.6 points and was named to the AAC first team. And remember, Williams was named the Preseason Big East Player of the Year. She scored at least 20 points nine times last season, including 26 against East Carolina and Cincinnati, and 24 against California.
Yet here she was entering Saturday, despite the 21 she had against Seton Hall, shooting 43 percent, and 20 percent on 3s. That’s a painfully small sample size, but it also was time for Williams to catch fire. She did.
UConn only used its press defense in the first quarter and Xavier turned the ball over an appalling 14 times in 10 minutes as UConn got out to a 38-7 lead.
“We got a lot of steals, got a chance to get in our transition,” Williams said. “It gave me a lot of energy. I love to get out in transition. If I get a few buckets early on it helps me the rest of the game.”
Transition, driving, that’s her game, Nelson-Ododa said.
“Christyn was awesome,” Nelson-Ododa said. “Forcing turnovers and traps, something we’re really working on. Both ends she was really aggressive.”
The other night Auriemma called his team the worst shooting team in America.
Well, they shot 63.8 percent for the game, including 55.6 percent from the 3.
“It felt really good,” Williams said. “We’ve been working hard to consistently shoot 3s and make them. We’ve been putting in the work so they’re going to fall at some point. Today it fell.”
Auriemma, of course, is relentless in pursuit of perfection. On Saturday, he was pooh-poohing the notion that this team plays strong defense. And, in explaining how the ball is moving better on offense, he still got in a jab at his star freshman facilitator.
“The one thing that is significantly better than last year is we are a much better passing team,” Auriemma said. “That creates more opportunities for everybody. We’re able to use the whole court. We get rid of the ball quickly. We have a team that’s willing to pass the ball. That’s somewhat unusual in today’s day and age. And for the most part, we’re a pretty good passing team.
“I’m sure Paige (who has six turnovers to go along with nine assists) will get a Christmas gift from all the teams we play because once we get a big lead, she starts throwing it to their players. She’s from Minnesota. She feels sorry for them. Yah. You betcha.”
It’s all about preparing his teams for their biggest games. And that’s what it’s about for Williams. It’s her time.
“Every player has to make a progression,” Auriemma said. “At Connecticut, when you’re a freshman you pretty much have a specific role to play on the team. With some exceptions. When Christyn was a freshman, it was pretty simple. Christyn, every time we rebound the ball, every time they score, run as fast as you can up the floor. We’re going to throw it to you and make something happen. Get in the lane, pullups, 3s, whatever you want to do.”
That’s how she got those 28 against Notre Dame.
“Now as you progress and get to your junior year, your role has to be bigger. You have to be able to do more and score more ways. Teams have had a chance to watch you for three years and know exactly what your tendencies are. It does become about being smarter and more efficient.
“And in all the big games we’re going to play, you’re going to have to come up big in those games. You might not get 25 shots. You might get 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 and you might have to make eight, nine, 10. That’s the next step. That’s part of what happens at Connecticut. That’s where she is. That’s where Liv is.”
Two years ago with Napheesa Collier and Katie Lou Samuelson, Auriemma said, Nelson-Ododa was living in a different neighborhood.
“It was Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood,” Auriemma said. “Be a kid and just hang out. Now she’s living in a tougher neighborhood. Those two guys, Christyn and Liv, what we need for them every single night is pretty much the same now.” A lot. And efficiently. “That comes with experience,” Williams said. “I know stuff now that I didn’t know my freshman and sophomore year. Watching a lot of film, working on it in practice and becoming more consistent. I’m doing things you haven’t seen me do because I have more responsibility this year.”
And with responsibility comes great expectations.