The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
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DECEMBER 2021 THE WOLVERINE 41 Martelli also added: "And he's not a one-way player. It's not like, oh, his three-point shooting has improved or his drives to the basket have improved. What he can do is he can guard multiple positions and he clearly, clearly impacts winning." Williams is the first to admit he's not a finished product. He has a long way to go in his development and career, with plenty to still work on. Just this season, he's had some ups and downs, missing four of his five shot attempts in a loss to Seton Hall and struggling on both ends against Arizona, another U-M defeat. But there will rarely be complaints about his effort or his focus, and that's saying a lot. "I'm going to continue to do what's best for the team — no matter the situ- ation, no matter the role I play," Williams said. "Some days, the shot may not fall, but I'm going to continue to play defense; I'm going to continue to rebound. I'm trying to put it all together — of course — but I'm going to do whatever I can to win. "I still have more to prove; I still have more to show. I'm going to keep working, and whenever Juwan calls my name, I'm just going to try to be ready and produce." "I actually had a conversation with him, saying that he is a captain-in-wait- ing in this program, and he is going to have a major impact the rest of this year," Martelli added. "And the results are going to be a lot of wins because Terrance Wil- liams is on your team." ❏ Terrance Williams II isn't one to back down from a challenge. Since he's unselfish and was the tallest player on his Washington (D.C.) Gonzaga team in high school, he played the center spot. The 2020 Gatorade District of Columbia Player of the Year av- eraged 17.9 points and 9.9 re- bounds, leading his Eagles to a 25- 10 record in 2019-20. His squad finished third in the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference (WCAC) and made a semifinal ap- pearance in the conference tour- nament while competing against a plethora of high-major talent, including 7-1 Michigan freshman center Hunter Dickinson, who played for rival Hyattsville (Md.) DeMatha Catholic. Williams believes he and others from the area have been hard- ened by the battles that take place in the WCAC, which has prepared them to play at the next level. "First off, the WCAC is the best conference, I feel like, just because night in and night out, you have a tough opponent," Williams said. "You've got tough teams from top to bottom, so if you take a night off, you might get caught and you might take that L. That happened to me a couple times in my high school career, where we lost some games we shouldn't have lost. "Your mindset coming into each game is, you've got to get this win, try to stay 1-0. That prepares you for now, because in the Big Ten, it's the best conference, in my opin- ion. Night in, night out, you can't take a night off. You've got to try to win that one game and be 1-0 at the end of that game. "[High school] prepared us for the Big Ten. And players in the WCAC, there are high-major, Division I players on each team. Now, we're playing in the Big Ten where everybody is a high-level, Divi- sion I player. It all came full circle. The environment, as well. We played in big venues. The championship was at American [Univer- sity]. That's like 5,000 seats right there, and loud. The high school gyms are usually sold out. The student sections are loud." He's enjoying playing in front of a crowd again and for the first time in college, after spectators were extremely limited last sea- son. Williams, who wears his team- issued headband upside down because he "likes to be different," feeds off the passion of the Crisler Center crowd and plays into the pageantry, like he did in high school. "It has lived up to the hype, I'm not going to lie," Williams said. "It just feels better with fans. The en- ergy in the building is better. You have more support from every- where. Last year, we had to create our own energy. This year, we still create our own energy, but we get energy from the Maize Rage and fans in the stands. I think it's better, and it has exceeded my expectations." He has also relished the oppor- tunity to play alongside Dickinson — it's likely more fun to play with the 2021 second-team All-Amer- ican than against him — some- thing he also did on the AAU cir- cuit with Team Takeover. "It's a cool experience," Williams said. "Both growing up in the same area, and now we're playing on one of the biggest stages in college basketball together. "It's cool and it's a cool story, but it's chemistry as well. I know him and he knows me, so we can play well together in the game, and we're close off the court, too. We do a lot of stuff together. He's my roommate at my apartment. So being around him all the time, it builds more chemistry on the court, and people can see it." — Clayton Sayfie Coming out of Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C., Williams was ranked as a consensus four-star prospect. All three major recruiting services listed him among their top 106 recruits nationally. PHOTO BY LON HORWEDEL Terrance Williams II Credits High School Experience For Preparedness