Duke center Mark Williams makes program history in NCAA Tournament

Duke center Mark Williams has shown all season long that he’s among the nation’s elite rim defenders. In the Duke Blue Devils’ Elite Eight victory Sunday night over the Arkansas Razorbacks, the freakish center once again put himself in rarified air in Duke basketball history. He blocked three shots in the 78-69 win and in doing so, tied Shane Battier for the most blocked shots in a single NCAA Tournament by a Duke player in program history–16.

Now that the Blue Devils are in the Final Four, Williams will have one and possibly two more games to break the record. Earlier in the season, he had his best performance of the year against the Syracuse Orange.

Williams pumped in a career-high 28 points, corralling 12 rebounds, and three blocks. The sophomore from Virginia Beach, Virginia is blessed with a ferocious amount of power and strength both on the offensive and defensive sides of the basketball.

Mark Williams NBA Draft stock is on the rise

A few weeks ago, ESPN rated Williams as the 26th best prospect in the upcoming 2022 NBA Draft. After his impressive performance in the 2022 NCAA Tournament, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see his draft stock jump quite a bit. Many people were raving about Duke’s star center during the Arkansas-Duke game on social media, including The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie. He noted on Twitter, “Yeah I mean, Mark Williams is flying around right now. Has every tool to be a terrific low-usage defensive center in the NBA. Might be an 8-year starter.”

He was named the 2022 ACC Defensive Player of the Year and it’s hard to see anyone arguing with that the way he’s played all season long. Willams was a four-star prospect coming out of IMG Academy and he’s lived up to that hype and then some. Few players can match his pure power as a rim defender and a ferocious dunker.

The Virginia native is going to be fun to watch in the Final Four and soon enough, the NBA.