With Purdue basketball set to officially open preseason practice on Oct. 14, we are keeping busy with a series making projections on each of Purdue's scholarship players, keeping in mind that we are basing such things off less than ever because of this bizarro world off-season. Please keep in mind that more in unknown — to people like us and maybe even to coaches and such — than ever before heading into a season.
Anyway, we start today with Trevion Williams.
The point in his career
Williams has been a good player for Purdue the past two seasons, but Purdue believes he can be a great player, and will hope for that step to be made this season. Williams made some reflective, big-picture comments late in the season last year about how fast time has gone by and how much more aggressive he needs to be that suggest he may understand what he needs to do to become the player he wants to be, if that makes sense.
Projected role
The junior is Purdue's starting center, its top returning player and almost certainly its destination player on offense, its go-to guy so speak, the player Purdue really tries to feature and play through on offense. Therefore, he will bear a great deal of responsibility to not only score and facilitate and such but also make sound decisions.
His capacity for minutes has always been a question with Williams due to his body type and conditioning, and now that comes to the forefront more than ever due to the uncertainty of players behind him. He will carry as many minutes as he can effectively handle and that'll put a tremendous onus on the work he puts in prior to the season, and has to this point, as well as his personal habits, discipline, mental strength and so on.
It's hard to overstate Williams' importance to this team this year and that puts a great deal of responsibility in his court.
Best case scenario
The best case for Williams is that he's consistent, he's assertive, he's well-conditioned and he's the best big man in a league full of great ones. It's not outside the realm of possibility, because Williams is very capable of being an elite player offensively at center and one of the premier rebounders in all of college basketball. That's his ceiling. But it would be ideal if he could give Purdue 28-30 good minutes per game, and carry himself like he's Purdue's best player. That means attacking single coverage in the post and not looking to pass first, as he sometimes did last season. The best-case scenario would also involve Williams improving defensively — it's not likely to ever be his strength, but he can be better — and assert himself as a leader on a team that needs them. This would an opportune moment for Williams to adopt a professional-type mentality, because he does have a real chance to play basketball for a long time after college.
Part of a best-case too would for Williams to improve considerably at the foul line and make people pay. He should be one of the most-fouled players in the league, after drawing an average of around 2.5 fouls per game last season in fewer minutes. He could realistically double that number. Improved foul shooting might be a step toward Williams playing with a little more aggressiveness, as other Purdue players have experienced in past years.
Worst case scenario
The worse case, really, would be for Williams to stay right where he is and just be a good player and nothing more, to blend in too much, to play passively, to be inconsistent and to not lead. That's honestly the worst case, barring injury or whatever, because as high as Williams' ceiling is, he has a pretty high floor too. He's too good an offensive player to not have a baseline of productivity you can count on, and he's too good a rebounder to not get seven or eight of them a game by accident if nothing else. A worst case would involve Williams' foul shooting struggles continuing and it affecting him adversely in terms of the way he plays and him struggling in dribble containment on defense so much Purdue's whole defensive structure has to be set up to cover him up. Foul-trouble problems, obviously, go without saying as something Purdue can't afford anymore, so those cheap bumps and reaches in ball-screen D can't happen.
Reasonable expectations
It's very reasonable to expect a first- or second-team All-Big Ten sort of season out of Williams because he's that good. Whether that's realistic to actually earn those honors with Luka Garza, Trayce Jackson-Davos, Kofi Cockburn, etc., back, I don't know, but he can have that sort of season. But Williams has not yet become a pillar of consistency, and that leaves a lot of different outcomes in play here. My guess is he's a markedly better player this season when Purdue needs him to be. He remains very young for his grade — he just turned 20 in mid-September — but he's had a good amount of time in the maturation over now. That's what's needed from him this season as much as anything else — maturity, consistency, aggressiveness, urgency and so on. If Purdue gets those things from him, chances are the productivity takes care of itself.
