Junior guard leans on fast-paced offense to lead team in scoring
Right after South Carolina’s 64-55 loss to Clemson on Sunday, junior guard Brenton Williams had a request for coach Frank Martin.
Williams wanted to see tape of guards who played for Martin’s former team, Kansas State, to understand their role in the offense.
“He said, ‘I want to see how they played so I can try to play like that,’” Martin said. “I thought that was a pretty powerful statement.”
In his weekly press conference Wednesday, Martin called the offense embarrassing, but he said Williams has been a spark for the team.
Williams leads USC in scoring with an average of 13.4 points per game after putting up 16 points against Clemson. His 3-point and free-throw shooting percentages are also the team’s best.
But Williams has just 10 assists on the season, and he’s had 18 turnovers.
“Right now, they’re upside down,” Martin said. “They need to get turned the other way.
The junior said his strategy is to take shots he thinks he can make within the offense.
“I really don’t see myself as a leader,” Williams said. “I just try to do what I can within the team and whatever Frank and the assistant coaches want me to do.”
Martin said South Carolina’s offense is the “most vanilla” he’s had in his six years as a coach, adding that its problems stem from a lack of communication. Martin has repeatedly said he thinks the team does more talking on Twitter than it does on the court.
Williams said the team needs to learn to communicate throughout the game, not only during time-outs. Another challenge for the offense is slowing down the pace of the game.
“Sometimes we try to score too fast on the shot clock and take quick shots, and that’s not something [Martin] wants us to do,” Williams said. “He wants us to move the ball around and make the defense move so we can get easier shots.”
Even though Williams is the team’s scoring leader, Martin said Williams’ speed makes him an asset on the defensive end. Williams has had five steals this season, and 15 of his 19 rebounds have been on defense.
“He’s gotten better, and he’ll continue to get better because we’re not going to allow him to not improve,” Martin said. “We want to make sure we continue to push, prod, teach to get him to understand how good he can be.”
According to Martin, one of Williams’ biggest strengths is that he cares and wants to improve. Martin said all of the players need to work on understanding their assignments and using screens. He added that they “stand around too much.” Instead of dribbling, he said they need to pass or attack the rim.
Williams said Martin’s offense is faster-paced than what the Gamecocks ran last year, and he said that style of play is a good fit for the team.
“We just have to get better at it,” Williams said.
He planned to pick up tape of Martin’s players at Kansas State to prepare for USC’s home game against Jacksonville today.
“[Martin] wants to show the team how they executed it and how he sees that we’re just as capable as they were to execute the offense here,” Williams said.