'He makes us a different team': How Jaylin Williams can change Auburn basketball's ceiling
There isn't an Auburn basketball player that knows winning like Jaylin Williams.
The senior forward, and former four-star recruit in the Class of 2019, has experienced 90 career victories with the Tigers — more than any other player in program history. He's had roles as limited as a reserve coming off the bench behind Jabari Smith Jr. in 2021-22 and as integral as a full-time starter the next year, averaging 11.2 points per game to help Auburn reach the second round of the NCAA Tournament last season.
Williams hasn't ever been the main star on any of the teams he's been on at Auburn — All-SEC big man Johni Broome and five-star freshman Aden Holloway will likely share that role this season, too — but his value is seen time and time again.
It was on display Friday, as the Tigers beat St. Bonaventure, 77-60, to win the Legends Classic and pick up their third straight victory. Williams finished with 11 points, made four of his six shots and grabbed 10 rebounds. It's the second double-double of his career, with the first coming in November 2020.
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“You’re getting to see Jaylin Williams’ athleticism," Auburn coach Bruce Pearl said postgame. "I thought that when we can see J-Will fly around like that, that’s when he kind of, athletically, separates himself. And if his motor would run all the time like it did at times tonight, he makes us a different team.”
Pearl added: “He really raises our ceiling because he can also shoot the 3-ball and he can put the ball on the floor."
The rebounding for Williams is really what stuck out against the Bonnies. Though he's listed at 6-foot-8, Williams has only secured double-digit boards on three other occasions — versus St. Joseph's in November 2020, at Vanderbilt in February 2021 and in a matchup with Texas A&M in February 2022.
Auburn is undefeated in games in which Williams has at least 10 rebounds.
Williams cleaning the glass takes some of the load off of Broome, too. Broome, who led Auburn in scoring last season with 14.2 points per game, is once again pacing the Tigers so far this year, averaging 16.8 points on 56.8% shooting through the season's first four games.
The scoring will be there for Auburn in 2022-23. Holloway is too effective from 3-point range for it not to be. The freshman is shooting 46.4% beyond the arc to start his career — and that's without mentioning the abilities of newcomers like Denver Jones, Chad Baker-Mazara and Chaney Johnson. Jones, a transfer shooting guard from Florida International who averaged 20.1 points per game last season, made all three of his triples against St. Bonaventure.
What Williams can be to complement those scorers is a consistent and efficient presence, and also a spark plug to either break the Tigers out of a cold spell or catapult them into momentum-building runs — his steal and windmill dunk against the Bonnies came in the heart of an 8-0 swing to close the first half.
When Williams is locked in and playing his role effectively, Auburn's trajectory goes way up.
"He has a high basketball IQ, so when he’s being aggressive and crashing the glass like that, it takes (pressure) off of not just me, but Dylan (Cardwell) as well and everybody else," Broome said of Williams. "He can do that every night if he wants.
"I think he’s going to pick it up from here."
Richard Silva is the Auburn athletics beat writer for the Montgomery Advertiser. He can be reached via email at rsilva@gannett.com or on Twitter @rich_silva18.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: How an efficient Jaylin Williams changes Auburn basketball's outlook
