Sports

Despite Duke losing, Zion Williamson had one of the greatest college basketball seasons ever – For The Win

Published

2 months ago

July 10, 2024

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Zion Williamson won’t have a national championship attached to his name after Duke fell to Michigan State on Sunday night.
But after we watched him blow away opponent after opponent, it begs the question: Where does his 2018-19 season — potentially his only one as a college athlete, he said it’s a “high chance” he’ll declare for the 2019 NBA Draft — rank in college hoops history?
For that answer, I turned to Sports Reference’s College Basketball site.
Williamson averaged 22.6 ppg, 8.9 rpg, 2.1 spg and 1.8 bpg in 2018-19. Pretty bonkers numbers, and here’s the proof: Just 63 players since 1992-93 (the site has some notes about stat coverage issues before that year) have had more than 20 ppg, 8 rpg and 1.5 bpg. We’ll get to the steals in a sec.
How many of those players, however, were freshmen, which makes the accomplishment more impressive? Although perhaps in an era with more one-and-done players, first-year stars might get more playing time than in the past.
Anyway, the list is SIX players long and two of them from this season joined Williamson: Bol Bol from Oregon and Cal State Northridge’s Lamine Diane are on there, as are notables like Deandre Ayton, Michael Beasley and … Kevin Durant (can we take a moment to marvel at 25.8 ppg, 11.1 rpg, 1.9 bpg and 1.9 spg? HOW DID PORTLAND TAKE GREG ODEN OVER HIM?).
Speaking of which, let’s add in the steals. There have been just 13 seasons of 20 ppg, 8 rpg, 1.5 spg and 1.5 bpg since ’92-’93, including Durant and Joe Smith for Maryland in 1994-95 before he was the No. 1 overall pick.

But there’s one more number to add in: Williamson hit an astounding 68 percent of his shots this season. Just THREE players have ever averaged more than 20 ppg and 67 percent from the floor.
Just for fun, I ran a search of 20 ppg, 8 rpg, 1.5 bpg and more than 0.5 three-pointers made per contest and got 20 players including Williamson and Bol Bol again. When you put all of those various searches together, you get a whole picture: Williamson did it all.
No matter how you cut it, Zion had an all-time jaw-dropper of a season, with or without a national title.
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