Duke basketball: 3 most concerning stats thru 3 games

Concerning Duke basketball stat: Mark Williams’ minutes

No matter how you slice it, sophomore center Mark Williams is falling short right now of the expectations that resulted from his unmistakable flashes of ascendancy toward the end of his Duke basketball freshman campaign.

However, as alluded to here on the previous slide, rather than allowing Williams to rediscover his prowess on the floor, Mike Krzyzewski might now be shaking the 7-foot starter’s confidence a bit by regularly resigning him to the bench. He’s committed only four fouls for the season and doesn’t appear to have any injury setbacks. Nonetheless, he’s averaging only 15.0 minutes per game.

True, Williams has been utterly ineffective at times throughout the sparse playing time he has received. In fairness, though, if Paolo Banchero wasn’t on this team and so often on the court, Williams would likely have another handful of rebounds to his name and might have found his rhythm via several more touches on offense each game.

On that note, part of the problem with Williams could stem from his adjusting to having a star-studded freshman power forward by his side in Banchero. Still, one would think Williams needs ample minutes these days to figure it all out — as fans have seen him do before — if the Blue Devils are to pose legit problems down low come the season’s all-important latter stages.

Again, it’s worth repeating here that there are much worse spots to be in as a squad than 3-0 with a manageable shortlist of seemingly correctable concerns.