JUMPING-OFF POINT

As he sat in the locker room of the Greensboro Coliseum after yet another loss last Friday, days away from learning his Terrapin men's basketball season was over, Jordan Williams received a question he didn't have an answer for.

Just two years earlier, the topic would have been laughable. A flabby, undervalued center from Connecticut's basketball hinterlands wasn't even a blip on the radars of many big-time college basketball programs, let alone any NBA scouts.

But after one of the most dominant seasons by any frontcourt player in program history, Williams is at the center of the team's most pressing offseason question: Will the sophomore be back?

"I'm not even thinking about that," Williams said before the start of last week's ACC Tournament. "I'm just trying to focus on this team right now and getting this team better and getting this team to the tournament. That's the most important thing. I haven't really put any thought into that."

His non-answer didn't change after the Terps fell to Duke for the third straight time this season. Williams, despite continued struggles from the free-throw line, again carried the team with 16 points and 16 rebounds — a stat line of increasing regularity for the forward this year.

The double-double marked Williams' 25th in 33 games this season, more than any other player in Terp history. On a team filled with inconsistent pieces, Williams became the one player coach Gary Williams could regularly rely on through the season's trying stretches.

"He caught some people off guard with how much he'd improved," Gary Williams said last week. "They had to play against him to see how much better he was. The second time around, they brought more people in to help on him and things like that. It's just like when you play against a really good team. Jordan's going to get everybody's best shot."

After an offseason spent losing nearly 20 pounds and refining his post game, Williams wasted little time showing his role was better suited as a go-to force than supporting cog, as it was on last year's senior-led team.

He started every game for the Terps, averaging more minutes, points and rebounds than any player on the team. In two years, he has amassed more than 600 rebounds. Just one Terp has ever accomplished that feat in program history — Joe Smith, who departed College Park after his sophomore season in 1995 to become the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA Draft.

Williams has received praise from almost every opposing coach he's faced this year, often being touted as the best big man in the ACC and one of the best in the country. But NBA Draft evaluators have tempered expectations for the sophomore.

"The season that Maryland has kind of speaks for itself," said Jonathan Givony, the director of scouting for DraftExpress.com, which ranked Williams the No. 79 overall prospect for the 2011 NBA Draft. "In terms of the effectiveness of the way he played, being the go-to guy for a team that wasn't even invited to the NIT, I don't think that's really going to impress many people in terms of his resumé."

Other projections have Williams outside the first round — uncertain territory given its lack of guaranteed contracts for draftees. Chad Ford, the NBA Draft analyst for ESPN, has Williams at No. 65 on his Top 100 and eighth among centers, while NBADraft.net has him as a mid-to-late first-round pick in the 2012 draft.

Givony and Ford both agree Williams has the strength and soft hands to play professionally. But while he's one of the nation's top rebounders, question marks remain about how his game translates to the next level.

"What he needs to work on is playing hard consistently," Givony said. "On the defensive end especially, there are a lot of occasions where you watch him and you say, ‘Is this guy giving 100 percent despite the numbers and all that?' He's a guy that's going to be a role player in the NBA, and he can't be taking possessions off."

But at least in college, Williams' accomplishments in just two seasons under Gary Williams — and his potential for even greater heights should he stay — have been substantial. And Williams himself has hinted at the possibilities the future holds for the Terps. Whether he's a part of it, though, may take a couple months to know for certain.

"It definitely shows that we have a bright future," Williams said after the Duke loss. "The young guys are definitely going to be very good here in the future. So we're definitely excited."

ceckard@umdbk.com

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Joe Smith was the lone Terrapin men's basketball player to be drafted No. 1 overall in the NBA Draft. John Lucas was also selected No. 1 overall.