HERAKLION, Greece – Sophomore Trevion Williams played a major role in helping USA Basketball to the 2019 U19 World Cup Championship.
The 12-player group capped off a perfect event with a 93-79 win over Mali in Sunday’s championship game.
The Americans posted a 7-0 record with an average victory margin of 28.7 points and just three contests, Sunday’s championship game, a preliminary game against Lithuania and the quarterfinals against Russia, were decided by fewer than 25 points.
Williams, a 6-foot, 9-inch forward from Chicago, averaged 8.7 points, 6.6 rebounds, 1.7 assists and 1.1 steals per game in 13.8 minutes per game.
In Sunday’s title game, Williams had six points, seven rebounds and two assists in just 10 minutes of action.
Williams’ top performance came in the round of 16 win over Latvia on July 3. He tallied 17 points with 12 rebounds (10 offensive) and three assists in just 17 minutes of action. He also had 12 points and seven rebounds in the opener against New Zealand and 11 points and nine rebounds against Senegal during pool play.
He finished second on the team in rebounds, but Williams’ 19.2 rebounds / 40 minutes were the highest total in the tournament by 2.5 rebounds.
This marked the third straight U19 World Cup that a Boilermaker has been on the roster. In 2015, consensus All-American Caleb Swanigan led the Americans to a gold medal, while two-time All-American Carsen Edwards helped USA to a bronze medal in 2017.
After playing sparingly in the first 10 games of
the season as a freshman in 2018-19, Williams broke out after the calendar
turned to 2019. Over the last 25 games, he averaged 6.0 points, 5.1 rebounds,
0.7 assists, 0.6 blocks and 0.4 steals per game in just 12.4 minutes per game.
For the season, he shot 54.2 percent from the
field (78 of 144), good for eighth on the Purdue freshman all-time list. He
recorded double-doubles against Michigan State (13 pts, 12 rebs) and Rutgers
(16 pts, 13 rebs). Williams' 13 rebounds against Rutgers tied for the fourth
most by a freshman in Purdue history.
Equated to 40 minutes over the last 25 games,
Williams averaged 19.4 points, 16.5 rebounds, 2.3 assists, 1.9 blocks and 1.3
steals.
Purdue will return two starters and eight letterwinners from the 2018-19 squad that reached the Elite Eight and won the Big Ten regular-season championship for the second time in three seasons.