CLEMSON, S.C.- Get ready for a stat that will make you cringe.
After the Terp basketball team mostly held down some of the ACC’s most explosive front courts in their first five ACC games, Trevor Booker and Jerai Grant combined for 28 points and 28 rebounds in last night’s 62-53 Tiger win.
But it’s really hard to blame Terp freshman Jordan Williams.
The freshman center led the Terps in most senses of the word at Littlejohn Coliseum. On a night when Greivis Vasquez and Landon Milbourne combined to shoot 4-for-19, Williams helped keep the Terps in it with a workmanlike effort on both ends of the floor.
The 6-foot-10, 260-pounder finished with 13 points, 13 rebounds, two blocks and two steals. He goaded Booker into a 2-for-16 shooting performance during a career-high 34 minutes.
Williams also accumulated 10 points and nine rebounds during the Terps’ disappointing first half, allowing the visitors to at least be in position for their second half run. That included one stretch in which he had a personal 6-o burst after his team fell behind 13-4. In less than a minute, Williams had a layup, a steal that drew him two free throws (which he made), a drawn charge resulting in one of the Tigers’ 21 turnovers and a short jumper.
“He kept us in there in the first half without a doubt,” coach Gary Williams said. “We only scored [22] points and without him rebounding, I don’t know where we would’ve been.”
Even more impressively, Jordan Williams tweaked his ankle grabbing a second half rebound. After limping off and refusing help from trainer J.J. Bush, Williams returned minutes later, playing without a limp.
Afterward, he downplayed the injury, insisting he will be fine: “It’s all right. Yeah, it’s good,” Williams said.
But on a night when the Terps needed to be gritty and tough just to hang around, their freshman center provided perhaps their grittiest and toughest performance–and going forward that can only be encouraging.
“He’s where he is,” Gary Williams said, “and if he just keeps working hard, he’s going to special.”
Eric Detweiler is The Diamondback’s Terrapin Men’s Basketball Team beat writer. He can be reached at edetweilerdbk@gmail.com. You can follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/edetweiler.