She doesn’t command the highlight, or the ground, like Paige Bueckers. She isn’t, like Azzi Fudd, a cornerstone of UConn’s future.
But when the Huskies win their twelfth nationwide championship on Sunday night time, Christyn Williams can have been an enormous cause — partially as a result of she’s one of many greatest causes her crew is enjoying in Minneapolis.
Throughout 135 minutes in UConn’s first 5 match video games, the senior guard from Little Rock, Ark., has averaged 14.2 factors and 4.2 rebounds. Though she struggled early in Friday’s recreation in opposition to Stanford, a 3-pointer later proved electrifying, and she or he gave the Huskies offense an early foothold in Monday’s recreation in opposition to top-seeded North Carolina State in a recreation that finally went to double additional time. And in a single second after one other, she has stood, poised and calm, to match a clutch shot from behind the arc, or a free throw when UConn very a lot wanted a degree or two.
She has additionally supplied a dose of one thing approaching seen-it-all management, despite the fact that Sunday’s recreation can be her first look in a nationwide title showdown.
“We’re simply going to return out and play like we’ve been enjoying all season and lead like we’ve been main all season and throw the primary punch and produce a variety of vitality and depth to the sport,” Williams mentioned on Saturday of herself and the roster’s different energetic senior, Evina Westbrook.
“It begins with the seniors,” she added, “so we’re going to convey it.”
It has not been a picture-perfect path this season, Williams acknowledged, after Bueckers obtained damage in December and she or he tried to behave as her stand-in.
“I really feel like I used to be referred to as to step up and play that function as a result of she was averaging 20 factors,” Williams, a sociology main who additionally spent a part of the season restricted due to coronavirus guidelines, mentioned this weekend. “I believe that sort of backfired for me. I really feel like I used to be attempting too laborious and attempting to drive issues and it simply wasn’t going properly. So I simply needed to look in myself within the mirror and say ‘do what you do greatest,’ and that’s get to the basket. I sort of obtained again to that and my pictures began falling after I began attending to the basket and choosing up on protection.”
Now, she is on the point of hand off this system to Bueckers and Fudd.
“They’re younger nonetheless, they usually simply have a lot confidence, so I’ve a variety of confidence in them for the remainder of their years right here,” she mentioned earlier within the match. “I’m actually proud that I’ve gotten an opportunity to play with them this 12 months and final 12 months. However I’m very assured in them. They’ll deal with enterprise.”
However she has one final take a look at first.
“I believe our crew simply realized that we are able to conquer something,” she mentioned final week. “That double additional time recreation was very laborious, however we stayed composed by all of it and we had been very poised. I simply really feel like the most important factor is we all know that we are able to grind it out when we have to.”
