Brice Williams, in his understated way, keeps coming up big for Charlotte 49ers basketball
When the game’s final dagger was finally thrown, Brice Williams broke character.
And who could blame him?
With 1:23 left on Thursday night — with his Charlotte 49ers up a tenuous seven points against an explosive Middle Tennessee State opponent — Williams took a dribble right, leaned in, watched his defender fall to the ground and let a fated 3-pointer fly.
It swished through.
The crowd erupted.
And Williams, Charlotte’s silky smooth guard who rarely lets the emotions of a game rile him up, let loose. He roared.
“That was just the emotion of a game,” Williams told reporters after his team’s 82-67 win. “I remember we were up by like 12 with 4:30 left, and then they cut it down to five or six, and I felt myself getting shaky, honestly.
“And then that play was kind of a moment where I heard the crowd behind me, and it was just an emotional moment where I, you know, said something to hype myself up.”
When asked if he remembered what he said, a subtle smile snuck through: “Nah, I don’t.”
The bucket extended Charlotte’s lead to 10. It also fired up MTSU’s coach. Nick McDevitt spent the ensuing possession arguing that Williams’ move should’ve drawn a charging call — and the coach didn’t relent in his stance until he received two technical fouls and was ejected from Thursday’s contest.
Williams was then sent to the free-throw line and hit 3-of-4, extending the 49ers’ lead to 13. That sequence punctuated Williams’ career-high 31-point night and put the game away for good.
“We didn’t run any plays for Brice today,” Charlotte coach Ron Sanchez said postgame. “He just scored out of the offense. We talked in the huddle, and said, ‘When you have a teammate that kind of has it going, it’s your responsibility to find him. You can’t wait for the coaches to call plays.’ “
The coach added: “I’m happy for him. He’s been working really hard, been trying to get better. He’s had some ups and downs, and this is what happens when you stay the course. So I’m hoping this turns into more performances like this.”
Williams — the son of the late Charlotte 49ers’ all-time leading scorer, Henry Williams — redshirted the 2021-22 season because of injury. He now comes off the bench for the 49ers and still leads the team in points with 10.6 a game. Thursday explained how that was possible.
Williams was efficient everywhere: He went 9-of-11 from the field, 2-of-3 from 3 and 11-of-13 from the free-throw line. He added four rebounds and two assists in 27 minutes, the second-most he has played all year.
MTSU’s full-court press made it difficult for Charlotte to get into its halfcourt Princeton offense — one of backdoor cuts and handoffs and endless motion — and Williams provided an antidote to that. He got to the basket. He kissed floaters off the glass.
He hit a pull-up 15-footer right before the half to give Charlotte a 33-32 lead at the intermission.
He hit a 3 during the team’s most tenuous stretch in the second half to tie the score at 50, marking the 49ers’ final time trailing.
And he had “wow” moments galore. Two came in the form of attempted dunks: one in the first half (that actually was a clean flush) and one in the second (that saw the ball get stuck on the rim before it fell through as Williams was fouled).
All the while, Williams never flinched.
“I was hyping him up the whole time, man,” starting point guard Lu’Cye Patterson said postgame, chuckling. “Every time he scored, I told him, ‘Hey, they can’t mess with you.’ Every time. You know that’s my guy off the court, so you know I’m always rooting for him on the court, too.”
The 49ers are now 10-3 on the season and 6-0 at home for the first time since 2012-13. This might be the best team in the Sanchez era: Charlotte has a 6-foot-11 reigning Conference USA Freshman of the Year in Aly Khalifa. They’re led by veterans and talented transfers.
And Thursday saw the highly anticipated emergence of a vital piece — of a scorer who, at least on Thursday, proved he can bring his team’s offense to life on his own.
“Me, personally,” Patterson said, “I was waiting for a game like this from him.”
A game like this, perhaps, where Charlotte’s understated guard broke free — level-headed and emotional all at once — and revealed how good he could truly be.
Note: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated Williams’ shooting from the floor during Thursday night’s game. He went 9-of-11 from the field.
This story was originally published December 29, 2022 at 10:03 PM.
