Luke O’Brien has found a new home. And Cody Williams made it official that his brief time calling Boulder home is at an end.
As expected, Williams on Monday announced he will enter the NBA draft, officially ending an injury-marred, one-and-done tenure with the Colorado men’s basketball program. O’Brien has opted to use his extra season of eligibility granted by the NCAA for the 2020-21 COVID season as a fifth-year player at Georgia Tech.
Williams played in 24 games, missing 13 due to various injuries throughout the season. Williams finished third on the team at 11.9 points per game, shooting .552 overall and .415 on 3-pointers (17-for-41). He averaged 3.0 rebounds and finished with 38 assists against 48 turnovers.
Williams was sidelined by injuries on four different occasions, most notably with a wrist injury that kept him out for seven games from early December through the first four Pac-12 Conference games. Williams also suffered an ankle injury that kept him out of the final four games of the regular season.
The 6-foot-8 wing scored a season-high 23 points in a home win against Oregon on Jan. 18, and he averaged 17.4 points in his first five conference games before the injuries took a toll. After starting in his first 18 appearances, Williams came off the bench for CU’s six games in the Pac-12 and NCAA tournaments, averaging 6.7 points with a .395 field goal percentage (15-for-38).
Despite the injury issues, Williams still is expected to be a lottery pick when the NBA draft begins on June 26. Williams has a chance to be CU’s highest-selected player in 14 seasons under head coach Tad Boyle, an honor that currently belongs to Alec Burks (12th overall in 2011).
O’Brien played in 111 games in four seasons with the Buffs, averaging 6.7 points with a .456 field goal percentage (both career-highs) as a senior this past season. He follows paths charted by other previous four-year players at CU who used their extra COVID seasons elsewhere like D’Shawn Schwartz (George Mason), Eli Parquet (UNLV) and Dallas Walton (Wake Forest).
With Williams’ departure official, coupled with recent commitments from Colorado Mesa’s Trevor Baskin and former Washington State forward Andrej Jakimovski, Boyle and his staff still have two open scholarships to work with this spring.
