CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Mark Williams couldn’t hold back his excitement. For a lot of 2020 basketball recruits, today is a little like Christmas morning.
Starting at 12:01 a.m., coaches were allowed to make unlimited calls and texts to juniors-to-be, heightening the recruiting process for players.
“Yeah, I’m pretty excited for that,” Williams said. “(Recruiting) has been going pretty well). I’ve been finishing around the basket, playing well on defense, blocking shots and getting rebounds.”
Because he’s playing in the NBA Players Top 100 camp here and has multiple games today, he said he didn’t play to stay up late to wait for any calls or texts.
“I tried to stay up, but I fell asleep,” he said. “We do too much every day, so I have to take care of my body and I can’t stay up late.”
When Williams woke up this morning, he said he already had texts from Virginia Tech, Virginia Commonwealth, Ohio State and Florida.
This morning, he’s had more texts from Kansas, Seton Hall, Pittsburgh, Virginia and Stanford.
Before Friday, Williams had been seeing interest from VCU, Virginia Tech, Clemson, Georgetown, LSU, Oklahoma State, Wake Forest, and Stanford, to name a few. He said he is hoping to hear also from Texas Christian, Cal and UCLA today.
At 6-11 and 210 pounds, Williams is the younger, but certainly not little brother, of former ALL-USA girls basketball player Elizabeth Williams, now in the WNBA with the Atlanta Dream. Williams was eight when his sister unveiled her college choice of Duke in 2010, but now he’s the one being pursued.
Not surprisingly, he spoke highly of ACC schools, including Virginia, Virginia Tech and North Carolina, Duke’s archrival.
“It’s an ACC school and Roy Williams is a great coach,” he said. “My sister just wants the best for me. Obviously, there would be a little rivalry.”
Williams averaged 16.5 points, 10.2 rebounds and 4.6 blocks in leading Norfolk Academy to its first Tidewater Conferenece of Independent Schools title in 22 years.
At the NBA Top 100 Camp, he’s one of the younger players here. He doesn’t turn 17 until next December.
He had 10 points and five rebounds in 16 minutes in his last game on Thursday.
