MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Three weeks after announcing plans to enter the NBA draft, West Virginia junior forward Devin Williams fortified the move by signing with an agent and official canceling his final season of college eligibility.
Thanks to a longer exploratory window this year, players have until May 25 to pull out of the draft, and coach Bob Huggins advised Williams to keep his options open until NBA combine invitations were extended in the forthcoming weeks.
After Williams signed with Aaron Turner of Verus Management Team on Tuesday, Huggins told Metronews the coaching staff had long viewed the return of his 6-foot-9 leading rebounder as unlikely.
“I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for Devin Williams,” Huggins said, “and he knows I wish him only the best in his career.”
While the loss of the Big 12’s leading rebounder creates a void, Williams’ departure temporarily solves a numbers crunch, with West Virginia previously facing the possibility of being one player over the NCAA-maximum 13-scholarship limit. Now that three players are exiting and three signees are scheduled to enroll next month, the roster once again conforms, though it’s too soon to rule out more attrition and the possibility of WVU backfilling with a graduate transfer or a junior college signee.
Williams doesn’t project to be among the 60 players drafted on June 23 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, the same venue in which Williams’ career ended with an NCAA tournament loss to Stephen F. Austin. Still, a variety of global leagues offer well-paying roster spots.
Williams was a prolific rebounder who started 99 of 103 games during three seasons at West Virginia. He ranked 12th on the school’s all-time rebounding list at 846 and was on pace to crack the top four of Kevin Jones (1,048) Warren Baker (1,070) Lloyd Sharrar (1,178) and Jerry West (1,240) with a productive senior season.
His 1,134 points leave Williams just outside WVU’s top 25 career scorers, though he showed incremental offensive gains in each of his three years with scoring averages climbing from 8.4 to 11.6 to 13.3 per game. His shooting percentage also steadily increased (41.4 percent to 44.7 to 46.7) as did his free-throw attempts. In fact, Williams led the Big 12 with 225 free throws this season, some 25 more than Buddy Hield, who won the Naismith and Wooden awards after returning as a senior.
Verus manages only two current NBA clients—Boston Celtics guard Terry Rozier and Denver Nuggets forward JaKarr Sampson—with several international players in the fold. The agency has two signed two other draft hopefuls this month in Baylor’s Taurean Waller-Prince and LSU’s Tim Quarterman.
Among its four NFL clients, Verus manages former West Virginia players Shaq Riddick and Quentin Spain.