Williams on the offensive
UConn sophomore offers glimmer of hope amid shooting slump
CINCINNATI — Christyn Williams exhaled as if a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. On this night, and hopefully on many more, there was no second-guessing, no guilt trips, no frustration.
But relief? Yes, there was relief.
“This year has been a struggle,” Williams said, accentuating the last word for effect.
It has, it most certainly has. Remember that carefree, cold-blooded freshman who dropped a cool 28 points on the No. 1 team in the country? Until Wednesday’s game against Cincinnati, a methodical 105-58 UConn victory, she had been MIA, along with that silky, smooth jump shot of hers.
But Williams changed that narrative with 26 points, hushing her skeptics one bucket at a time while matching her seasonhigh in scoring.
As she generally does when she has it going, Williams scored from all over the floor, but she was especially potent from long range. She sank 4-of-6 3pointers, and looked confident while doing so.
“Instead of being tentative, she became very sure of herself,” UConn head coach Geno Auriemma said.
It doesn’t necessary mean Williams’ struggles are over, but it was encouraging. For if the Huskies — 24-3 and ranked No. 6 in the Associated Press poll — want to spend April in New Orleans, they need Williams to figure things out in a hurry.
Without an All-American alongside her to stretch the floor, Williams has faced more doubleteams. At times, the pressure to do more with less
has gotten the best of her. She’s pressed, struggled, and then pressed some more, to the point where nothing’s seemed right.
“When you’re a scorer and you can’t score, it’s like the whole world doesn’t seem right for you,” Auriemma said. “You just can’t see your way out of it because you stay in the gym and you shoot more, that doesn’t help. You shoot less, that doesn’t help.
“You try to be more aggressive and all you do is dribble into trouble. A lot of bad things were happening for her.”
“She’s been pushing, getting up shots before practice, after practice,” junior Megan Walker added. “What I continue to tell her is this is all mental. If you believe that the shot’s going in or that you’re going to go out there and do this, it’ll happen.”
Williams has indeed worked overtime in the gym and watched more film. Coaches have encouraged her to lean on her teammates for support. But none of it’s seemed to work — that is until Wednesday.
Williams was an efficient 8-of-14 from the floor, ending a four-game streak where she shot below 50 percent. It was her most productive performance since dropping 26 points (11-of-17) against East Carolina on Jan. 25.
“I’m trying to be aggressive, I’m trying to make the right decisions,” she said. “In other games, I’m aggressive, but I’m not attacking it right. … I want to make sure I make the right reads and stuff. Today, I kind of got a feel of that.”
Few, if anyone, could have envisioned Williams struggling this much. There were times last season when she made the game look effortless. She had her rut, as most freshman do, but picked herself back up and rebounded in time for March, scoring in double figures in all five NCAA tournament games.
And then the circumstances around her changed.
“Now she’s having to figure out how to beat (other teams’) best defenders,” assistant coach Shea Ralph said. “It’s a constant growth that you have to go through. There’s ebbs and flows to that. There’s peaks and valleys.”
Ralph added: “You get to Connecticut and you think it’s going to be unicorns and rainbows when you put the jersey on and you’re an All-American and national champion. Then you realize how hard it is.”
When asked about it, Williams didn’t want to compare this year to last.
“It’s completely different, completely different,” she said. “My experiences last year, it’s not the same at all. I didn’t struggle this much.”
Williams scoring has increased to 14.6 points per game, but her shooting’s dipped to 44.9 percent (33 percent from 3). Auriemma’s stayed patient with her, using a baseball analogy to describe how some slumps begin and end without any rhyme or reason. Still, she’s struggled with her confidence.
“For her, I think she’s going to turn the corner soon, it’s just not going to be an overnight thing,” Ralph predicted Monday, prior to the road trip. “You’re going to see it, but it’s going to show itself slowly and then, ‘Oh, (crap), she’s playing great.’ All of a sudden you’re going to say, ‘There’s Christyn, there’s the kid that we’re used to seeing.’ It just won’t be this epiphany that everybody’s wanting.”
How will that translate over to Saturday’s game at Houston? Auriemma’s not sure.
“But,” he said, “I feel better about Saturday than I did (Wednesday) as far as Christyn goes.”