15 best NCAA basketball players we wish played in the Twitter era

1. Best NCAA basketball players before Twitter: Jay Williams, Duke

Many younger readers will mostly remember Jay Williams a bit more for his broadcasting, his current role within the game of basketball. That being said, Jay Williams was once a dynamic threat at the point guard position, specifically in college for the Duke Blue Devils.

The Miracle Minute the Duke Blue Devils had against Maryland, is the stuff of legends. Williams was the architect of that comeback from 10 points behind with less than a minute left to play and will go down in Duke history for that.

Williams was a dynamic athlete growing up in Plainfield, New Jersey, and that success continued at the collegiate level, when Williams, a 6-foot-2 point guard, became one of the few freshmen in Duke history to average double figures in scoring and was named the ACC Rookie of the Year.

He followed that up the next season, casually, starting 39 games and leading the Blue Devils to the 2001 National Championship after the above-mentioned Miracle Minute. On the way to that title, he set a new Duke record for points in a season with 841 and led the tournament scoring an average of 25.7 points per game. Williams grabbed both the Naismith Award and the Wooden Award for his troubles in 2002.

If you’re good enough to have your jersey retired as a Duke Blue Devil, that’s impressive enough. Having it retired as early as your senior day? That’s the stuff of college basketball legend. His ability to find the open teammate, and to go get a bucket himself, made him an exciting player to watch and landed him a spot on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

If you put his game into the Twitter-era, not only is the Miracle Minute a more well-known event, but Williams is a smash hit.

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