To many University of Dayton fans, the name Warren Williams came out of nowhere. With the recent news that Williams has shown an interest in the Flyers, they have scrambled to various sites around the net to get even a nugget of information on the DeMatha (Hyattsville, Md.) guard.

For the first three years of his high school career, Williams received cool interest from college basketball programs. There were several reasons. The 6’0 guard had spent half of the first two years of his high school athletic career playing soccer. Some would have argued two years ago that his future was in soccer.

Before his junior season however, Williams walked away from soccer and strictly played basketball at the national powerhouse program. Throughout his junior year, Williams was used as both a starting point/shooting guard and occasionally as a sixth man in the game’s opening minutes. The reason Williams found himself on the bench was not because of his lack of skill or ability, but rather his ability to be a back-breaker.

Late in his junior season, the Stags found themselves in a late-season battle with Washington Catholic Athletic Conference foe Gonzaga. With the game going back and forth in the opening minutes, DeMatha’s legendary coach Morgan Wootten brought Williams off the bench, and he promptly responded with a clinic of dribbling and driving, but more importantly he sank four three-point shots in just over two minutes. The stretch of play left many in the cramped gym of the DuFour Center at Catholic Center “ooooing” and “ahhing.”

The Stags would win the game walking away, and it proved to be another in a series of clutch performances from Williams.

Williams, along with current N.C. State forward Jordan Collins and future University of Maryland forward Travis Garrison, led the Stags to the WCAC regular season and tournament championships.

A week later, his team defeated former Dayton-recruit Sean Wiggins’ Spingarn team 65-50 in the City Title Game. That contest annually matched the WCAC Champion with the District of Columbia Interscholastic Athletic Association winner.

This season, Williams might have been the best player on DeMatha’s team, that despite the All-American notices that Garrison has received. Williams put up 15 points and 7 assists per game this season as his team once again repeated as WCAC and City Title champions. Williams was sensational down the stretch, using his trademark smoothness and fearlessness to attack the hoop. In the 2002 WCAC tourney, Williams looked sensational against St. Bonaventure recruit Ahmad Smith and scored 19 points in the win. After the game, DeMatha’s internet radio play-by-play man Nate Lewis scrambled to get Williams on the air. When someone asked if the WCAC named an MVP, Lewis responded with, “Nope. But Warren is our MVP.”

Perhaps one of Warren’s biggest strengths lies in the fact that he is extremely good working in transition. Often, Warren’s smothering defense led to DeMatha opening up their fast-paced offense. His ability to shoot effortlessly from anywhere on the floor and his killer instinct in taking the ball into the lane made him the most dangerous weapon on the floor. Perhaps no one in the Washington area has more confidence in his outside shot than Warren.

Often this season, Wootten compared Williams’ recruiting to former Dematha standout and future N.C. State championship hero Derek Wittenburg, saying that some college would get a steal out of the guard. Wootten has sent 13 players to the National Basketball Association and has won over 1250 games in his career.

Williams’ play became hard to ignore this season, and The Washington Post article on March 8 profiled him. Williams led DeMatha to another win over Spingarn in the 2002 edition of the City Title game. This time the score was 59-52, and Williams scored 23 points. The Stags finished No.1 in The Washington Post. Williams finished up his career with a 14pt, 9 assist effort in the title game victory over Bishop O’Connell in the Alhambra Catholic Invitational, giving the Stags a 32-3 season-ending record against one of the toughest schedules in school history. DeMatha stands 14th nationally in the latest USAToday Super-25 rankings.

To see some pictures of Warren, I recommend visiting Pat Suarez’s excellent photo gallery from the 2001 Alhambra Tournament. Also, check out the other links to stories on Warren Williams and DeMatha basketball.