C.J. Williams has been really good this season, so good in fact that he leads the team in scoring and is second in minutes only to Lorenzo Brown. Given the situation at guard heading into the season, we might have guessed that Williams would be more important than he has been in years past, but it would have been next to impossible to imagine him meaning as much as he actually has.
Take a look at his career progression:
CJW | ORtg | %Poss | %Shots | eFG% | FT% | 2FG% | 3FG% |
2009 | 105.1 | 13.2 | 15.8 | 53.2 | 58.8 | 51.5 | 36.4 |
2010 | 87.4 | 15.8 | 16.4 | 43.8 | 71.4 | 48.1 | 22.9 |
2011 | 100.4 | 15.6 | 16.7 | 48.5 | 68.2 | 52.3 | 22.2 |
2012 | 121.8 | 18.1 | 20.1 | 60.2 | 87.5 | 66.1 | 32.3 |
It's not often that a college basketball player is able to increase his workload while also dramatically improving his offensive rating/overall efficiency level. But Williams has taken responsibility for more of the team's shots than he ever has before and his effectiveness has gone off the charts largely because he's been incredibly accurate inside the arc. He's not going to continue to hit two-thirds of his two-pointers, but he has proven that he's a pretty capable scorer inside, so he's not about to fall off a cliff, either.
It'll be interesting to see how the rest of his senior season plays out. Even if he hasn't turned a big corner in his development, at the least he should remain a solid secondary scoring option.