AUBURN, Ala. – Auburn is a different team than it was two weeks ago. Sure, Isaac Okoro is healthy, and there's no understating the importance of that. But it's the emergence of another freshman, Jaylin Williams, that has the Tigers in maybe the best spot they've been all year.
Williams earned more playing time when Okoro was out and made the most of that opportunity. He played more minutes against Georgia and Tennessee than he had all season and scored a career-high eight points in the comeback victory over the Volunteers.
On Tuesday night against Ole Miss, Okoro was back in the lineup. As for Williams? He earned his keep. He stayed in the rotation and continued to do what he's been doing the two previous games.
Not long after checking in, the freshman dunked home a missed layup to energize the crowd at Auburn Arena. Later in the first half, he got the fans off their feet again with an alley-oop dunk to extend the lead to 11. But his best play of the night wasn't a dunk. It wasn't even one of his buckets. It was a no-look pass to teammate Anfernee McLemore who rocked the rim with a ferocious slam.
That no-look. 😱👀#WarEagle pic.twitter.com/zLEStCbxIB
— Auburn Basketball (@AuburnMBB) February 26, 2020
"Samir [Doughty] passed me the ball and I kind of fumbled it, so I wasn't looking to make a play," Williams said. "I was going to hit Samir back and then out of the corner of my eye, I saw Anfernee cutting. So I decided to do a no-look."
When McLemore cut to the basket on the play, he had no intention of receiving a pass or going up for a dunk. He was crashing the boards thinking Williams was going to shoot.
"I remember him getting the ball, and he was sort of double-teamed on the baseline," McLemore said. "I thought he was going to do a jump hook with his left hand and shoot it, so I was just putting myself in position to get the rebound. I saw him looking toward the corner, and the next thing I know I get a bounce pass coming my way. At that point, I just had to dunk it because it was such a good pass."
The dunk put the Tigers up 10 late in the first half and forced Ole Miss to use a timeout to try and slow the momentum and keep the crowd from getting out of hand.
For the fans, the no-look pass was something new from Williams. Everybody had seen just how athletic he was with the dunks earlier that same game as well as the dunk against Tennessee where he threw it off the backboard to himself. But who knew the 6-foot-7, 230-pound Williams could pass the ball like that?
"Since high school, I've been known for being a good passer," Williams said. "It's something that just comes naturally to me – making a great pass and finding out the wide-open person."
"I've seen him make that play several times," added Doughty. "That wasn't the first time. He's a talented offensive player. Everything that he's showing you that you're surprised about, I've seen it all summer and throughout the year even when he was on scout team. He has a great IQ offensively. Those are the things he's capable of doing. It's no surprise to us. The crazy part is he's going to get better and better."
Williams will be the first to tell you that there's still room for improvement, in particular on the defensive end, but his emergence allows Auburn to go to a nine-man rotation for the rest of the season and gives the Tigers yet another weapon offensively.
"You can see the confidence and his ability," Auburn head coach Bruce Pearl said. "He makes some terrific plays. His teammates have confidence in him. With Isaac being out, he really stepped up and really helped us at that position. Now that he's playing a little bit, there's a chance we can actually keep Isaac at more 3 and less 4. He and Danjel [Purifoy] are going to continue to have to play well, but Tuesday they had a pretty solid night."