Grant Williams has been a force of nature in his three seasons in Knoxville. Williams won all-conference honors as both a freshman and a sophomore, being named First-Team All-SEC last year. He has had another fantastic season, and Rick Barnes is certainly glad that he returned to the Tennessee Volunteers for one more year after flirting with entering the NBA Draft. Williams and the Volunteers will be looking to stay undefeated in conference play when they take on the Kentucky Wildcats, and BetDSI has asked whether or not he will finish with a double-double.
Will Grant Williams record a double-double against the Kentucky Wildcats on Saturday?
Yes +250
No -300
As great as Williams has been this year, he hasn’t had a lot of double-doubles. Williams has finished with a double-double in just five games, and he has finished one rebound shy of a double-double in four more. Much of that is due to Barnes wanting to rest him. Tennessee is the No. 1 team in the country, and the Vols have largely blown the doors off their opponents. In those games, he typically takes a seat early, and those light nights rarely don’t end in double-doubles.
Williams has yet to record a double-double in five previous meetings with Kentucky. He has reached the requisite point total in four of those five games, but he has never finished with more than nine rebounds. Williams came close against the Wildcats last year, posting 15 points and nine rebounds against Kentucky in the SEC Championship Game, yet he has been unable to break through.
Much of that has been due to foul trouble. He picked up four fouls in each of his last three games against the Wildcats, and that sent him off the floor for stretches where he normally would have been playing. Getting into foul trouble is one of his biggest weaknesses, and he has already fouled out of four games this season.
It may be hard for him to have success on this Kentucky defense too. The Wildcats have a top ten defense in the country according to Ken Pomeroy, and they allow opponents to convert just 44 percent of their two-point attempts. That says something about the quality of their interior defense, and they are likely to close down around Williams.
Coming into Saturday’s game, Williams has been a force. He has shot 50 percent or better from the field in seven straight games and has done a great job of getting to the line. I think he’s a lock to finish with at least ten points, so the only question is whether or not he will get to 10 rebounds.
I don’t think he’ll make it. Williams is such a force down low that opponents pull him out of the paint in order to keep him from putting up big rebounding numbers, and I see Kentucky doing the same here. He could also easily find himself in foul trouble with this game in Lexington, so the ‘No’ is the right play.
