UTEP Miners

Redshirt senior forward Bryson Williams is a long way from home.
 
Once the hometown kid from Fresno, Calif., playing two years at Fresno State, Williams relocated over 1,000 miles east and in an entirely new city and state.
 
"The main word for it is perseverance," said Williams of his basketball journey.
 
A freshman for the Bulldogs in the 2016-17 season, Williams joined a squad that was coming off a Mountain West Conference Tournament Championship and a first-round exit in the NCAA Tournament. Williams was expected to be a key addition in helping the program make a deeper run in March after becoming his team's all-time leading scorer (2,302 points) and leading Roosevelt High School to the Central Section Division III title during his senior year in 2016.
 
Dreams of playing for his community's university emerged quickly into Williams' thought process. Selected by the Fresno Bee's as the region's Offensive Player of the Year, Williams was in Fresno State's backyard, and campus was just a 10-minute drive over from Roosevelt.
 
The Bulldogs' coaching staff was gunning hard in their recruitment for Williams. Leading the swing for the locally grown champion was then-Fresno State head coach Rodney Terry.
 
Terry didn't miss, earning Williams' verbal commitment early on during his sophomore year.
 
The two met when Williams was just an eighth grader in one of Fresno State's basketball camps. Before long, Williams was getting invited to team runs on campus by Terry where he gradually began to make an impression upon the coaching staff and his future teammates.
 
"(Williams had) grown into being a really good player already," said now-UTEP head coach Rodney Terry. "As he got older and into his senior year, he was no longer coming over and being intimidated, but he was coming over and being a major factor in the pickup games with our guys."
 
Williams averaged 7.7 points – the most in his freshman class – and 4.4 rebounds per game in roughly 17 minutes his first year at Fresno State. Only one other underclassman on the roster averaged more points than Williams as he was selected as runner-up for the Mountain West Conference's Freshman of the Year.
 
"(Williams) was a focal point as a freshman on a really older team," Terry said.
 
The Bulldogs saw another first-round exit in 2016-17, this time in the NIT. Terry led Fresno State to a 21-11 record in Williams' sophomore season – one more win than the season prior – but they were not selected to a major postseason tournament.
 
In Williams' final season at the university he had been visiting since he was 13 years old, he put up 13.8 points and 6.1 rebounds per game in 28.6 minutes of work. However, Williams' first major connection to Fresno State basketball and first believer in him at the collegiate level, Terry, found work elsewhere the next season at UTEP.
 
Williams decided to follow Terry to the Sun City in 2018, continuing to trust his coach's process for his development as both a basketball player and as a man.
 
"I trusted Terry coming out to a whole new state for the simple matter that, for him, it's more than basketball," Williams said. "He improved me not only in areas of my game but as a man. He prepared me for the game of life."
 
Williams said he came under Terry's wing with the look of a reckless freshman.
 
"I was sagging my pants and just looking sloppy. He was always telling me, pick your pants up (and) tighten up," Williams said. "He changed my brand and showed me the right way to be. I was just about basketball; I didn't care about nothing else."
 
Now, Williams has put his nose to the grindstone on and off the court, earning C-USA Commissioner's Academic Honor Roll in 2019 and 2020 and plaudits to the C-USA All-Conference First Team a season ago.
 
"(Williams is) one of those throwback guys who you can't get out of the gym," Terry said. "He literally lives in the gym. One of the things that I'm really proud of too is he's done well academically here. ... He's been the full package in terms of what he brought to the table."
 
Also, to Terry's delight, Williams' offensive skillset has turned into the full package as well since his arrival at UTEP. Williams had just four 3-point attempts in his two years as a Bulldog. As a Miner last season, he almost averaged that total per game with 2.7 attempts beyond-the-arc.
 
Williams' three favorite past times have followed him from California: basketball, video games and music. But it's the niche he found in El Paso that has helped him put of video game-like numbers.
 
"(El Paso is) a great place to focus on your craft," Williams said. "There's not a lot of miscellaneous things going on around you."
 
Due to NCAA transfer rules, Williams was forced to sit out the 2018-19 season and serve as a de facto player-coach alongside Terry.
 
All Williams said he did during that time was dial in his shot – off the dribble, off the catch and from 3. It showed as Williams went on to shoot at a 49.9 clip from the field and 35.6 percent from 3-point land while averaging 17.8 points per outing – good for best on the Miners' squad.
 
"I want to become a more consistent shooter even more so than last year,". If it's an open shot, it's got to be a knock down. … I want it to be 70 percent if I can."
 
There's big postseason and post-graduation aspirations with this being Williams' final season in a Miner uniform.
 
"I would like to get my degree (in Multi-Disciplinary Studies) and finish on top of the conference, win conference and the conference tournament to ultimately get to the NCAA Tournament," Williams said.
 
Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, Williams faces more obstacles than usual – the possibility of no combine and in-person workouts or interviews – in reaching the next huge step of his hoops career: the NBA Draft.
 
If Williams' self-title for his basketball journey holds true as it has thus far, he will surely persevere.
 
"I always knew that if I was able to be blessed enough to get a workout with (teams) and NBA people to see how hard I play my game and how I play basketball with a sense of urgency every day to the gym and with my craft, I'll have a great shot for me to get picked up," Williams said.
 
Williams hasn't seen his mother, sister and grandmother in two years since he moved to El Paso.
 
The next time he does, he will be the first in his family to go to college and earn a degree and might be on the hook for his first job offer from a team in the Association.