College Career
At Duke, Williams became one of the few freshmen in Duke's history to average double figures in scoring and was named ACC Rookie of the Year and National Freshman of the Year by The Sporting News, averaging 14.5 points, 6.5 assists and 4.2 rebounds per contest. He was also a first team Freshman All-American by Basketball Times.
In the summer of 2000, Williams played as a member of the U.S. select team, a group of college players picked to play an exhibition against USA Basketball's "Dream Team", helping his team to surprisingly dominate the much more experienced pros for the first half of the game, before eventually succumbing to defeat in the second half.
Back at Duke that fall, Williams started all 39 games as a sophomore and led the Devils to the 2001 NCAA National Championship, earning NABC Player of the Year honors. His 841 points broke Dick Groat’s 49-year Duke record for points in a season, while he led all tournament scorers with a 25.7 ppg average. Williams also set the NCAA Tournament record for three-pointers attempted (66), while also making 132 three-point field goals—good for the sixth-highest total in NCAA history. His 21.6 ppg led the ACC and made him the first Duke player since Danny Ferry (1989) to lead the league in scoring. His 6.1 assists were good for second in the league, while he also ranked second in three-point field goal percentage (.427) and first in three-pointers made (3.4 per game). Williams was widely considered the best player in college basketball, earning both the prestigious Naismith Award and Wooden Award as College Basketball's Player of the Year in 2002. His prolific career was even more amazing given the fact that he accomplished these feats in only three years, graduating with a degree in Sociology in 2002. He would leave Duke with 2,079 points, good for sixth all-time, and would have his jersey number 22 retired at Senior Day.
He had 36 double-figure scoring games in a single season (tied for 5th-most in Duke history as of March 28, 2010, with Jon Scheyer, Shane Battier, and J.J. Redick).
In 2001–02, Williams, Carlos Boozer, and Mike Dunleavy, Jr. each scored at least 600 points for the season, a feat only matched at Duke by Jon Scheyer, Kyle Singler, and Nolan Smith in the 2009–10 season. Williams (841) and Shane Battier (778) on the 2001 national championship team were one of only two Duke duos to each score over 700 points in a season, the other duo being Scheyer (728) and Singler (707) in the 2009–10 season.
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