University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Marvin Williams --
October 20, 2004 | Men's Basketball
Oct. 20, 2004
by Adam Lucas, Tar Heel Monthly
CHAPEL HILL -- The question seems simple enough. Marvin Williams, you're a freshman, so many Carolina fans haven't seen you play. Can you describe your game?
"Nope," he says with an easy smile. "Can't do it."
Not at all?
"I can't do it," he says. "I just play."
He happens to "just play" pretty well. He was a McDonald's All-American selection, a consensus choice as one of the top-five prospects in the high school class of 2004, and if you believe some of the rankings, the best prepster to enroll in college this fall.
Despite the accolades, Williams -- who, as the third Williams on the Heels after Jawad and Roy is destined to make for some confusing postgame stories this year -- seems decidedly unimpressed. He speaks slowly, pausing to consider his response instead of blurting out something ill-conceived. His answers aren't canned, just thoughtful.
Is he nervous about his upcoming college debut? Maybe a little bit excited?
"No, I'm neither," he says. "I don't really get excited about stuff until it's here."
But his size and strength -- Rashad McCants compares Williams to Charles Barkley because of the way he consistently goes hard to the basket in the paint -- already have Carolina fans giddily projecting his impact on this year's squad. Last season's team had depth deficiencies at two key areas: point guard and in the post. Fellow freshman Quentin Thomas and sophomore transfer Wes Miller address the former need; Williams is the salve for the latter.
At 6-foot-9, 230 pounds, he already outweighs Jawad Williams, who has occasionally had to play out of position as a banger during his Carolina career. With Marvin's arrival, Jawad may get to face the basket more frequently, something that should allow him to take advantage of the matchup problems he presents for other teams.
For that reason, the rookie has been a popular figure on campus even before playing in an intercollegiate game.
"It's a shock," Williams says. "You'll just be walking down the street and someone you don't know says, `Hey, Marvin.'"
His recognition factor is likely to skyrocket after his face is splashed across national television 20 or more times this season. The ACC Basketball Handbook pegged him as the preseason ACC Freshman of the Year, an honor that's likely to be duplicated by the league's sportswriters when they gather in Greensboro for their preseason interview and voting festival on Oct. 31.
The hoopla would likely come as quite a surprise to Williams's father, Marvin, Sr., who thought he was raising a guard in the family's hometown of Bremerton, Wash., about 60 miles outside of Seattle. The elder Williams stands just 5-foot-11, and his wife just 5-foot-6, so there was little reason to suspect that their firstborn son might be a skyscraper.
"When I was younger, my dad thought I was going to be a guard," Williams says. "He taught me basketball from a guard's perspective. Dribbling, passing, and shooting was what we worked on."
That tutelage enables him to feel comfortable handling the ball on the perimeter, where he's prone to showing off a deceptively accurate jump shot. That array of skills has impressed his teammates during summer pickup games and also caused a murmur among some of the alums who were back in town to check up on the current Heels. He immediately drops the name Antawn Jamison as the toughest defensive matchup he faced this summer, and says being on campus gave him a new appreciation for the prestige of the program he's joined.
"Before I got here, I already knew Carolina basketball was big-time," he says. "But I've learned a lot about the tradition, about how hard everybody works every day. You don't realize how big-time this place is until Vince Carter, Antawn Jamison, and Shammond Williams walk through the door."
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and can be reached at alucas@tarheelmonthly.com. To subscribe to Tar Heel Monthly, click here.
