Two Special : Two-Sport Star Williams Gets Better in Basketball

Not many Pac-10 women’s basketball coaches or players are going to want to hear this: Natalie Williams, the UCLA junior who is the best rebounder in school history, is much better than she was a year ago.

Williams, who is 6 feet 1 and considered a junior in basketball, was also an All-American in volleyball last season. But it’s in basketball that the all-Pac-10 player says she has elevated her game to the next level.

She played six games in Europe last summer against pro teams in Belgium and France and averaged 22.3 points and 10.8 rebounds per game.

“I can’t explain it, maybe it was playing against tougher competition,” Williams said.

“But whatever, I felt like I was

learning new moves with the ball, I found myself making quicker decisions on the court and I shot much better than I ever had. I was even making more steals.

“After one game in France, after I’d scored 32 points, a women’s pro coach came up to me and offered me a $300,000 contract to stay in Europe.”

For UCLA basketball Coach Billie Moore there is some bad news in all this. Williams might not join the basketball team until Dec. 22, which would be UCLA’s fifth game, depending on how far UCLA advances in the NCAA women’s volleyball playoffs.

Until then, she belongs to UCLA volleyball Coach Andy Banachowski, whose team competes in the NCAA playoffs beginning next week.

Last year, she led the Bruins to a second consecutive NCAA volleyball championship, and was named an MVP at the last two volleyball Final Four tournaments.

Williams insists that volleyball is a tougher game than basketball. And it’s the sport she wants to compete in at the 1996 Olympics.

“Playing volleyball in the Olympics has been a dream for me ever since I was in the seventh grade,” she said.

“I’d like to make the Olympic team, then maybe play pro beach volleyball.”

Of course, 1996 is a long way off.

“Being a two-sport athlete in Division I is not an easy thing to do,” Moore said. “I have great respect for her. Nat’s a winner. She refuses to lose.”

Williams sat out the basketball season her freshman season but did play volleyball. This is her final season of volleyball eligibility. Next year will be her first all-basketball year.

Moore, entering her 16th UCLA season, calls Williams a UCLA basketball all-timer after two seasons.

“She’s one of the three best I’ve coached,” she said. “I put her right with Ann Meyers and Denise Curry. If she isn’t an All-American this year, something is wrong.

“She’s a very physical player, one who has great hands around the basket. And she’s a high-percentage shooter.

“Last year, in our games at Oregon and Oregon State, I never saw a player carry a team like Nat carried us. And that goes for men or women.”

At Oregon State last year, in a 71-70 victory, Williams had 14 rebounds and 26 points. And when UCLA beat Oregon, 83-76, on the same weekend, Williams had 22 rebounds and 29 points, two steals and a blocked shot.

In a 95-92 loss to eventual NCAA champion Stanford, Williams had 28 points and 15 rebounds.

A 56% field-goal shooter for the season, she made more than half her shots in 18 of 23 games. For her UCLA career, she is a 53.8% shooter and could easily move into second place on the all-time Pac-10 list this season.

Williams is also the all-time UCLA rebound leader with a 12.2 average a game. All of her statistics, in fact, are at near-record levels, despite the fact that her volleyball seasons have prevented her from playing in many basketball games in her career.

But, as Moore says, this is a player who wants to win.

Talking recently about UCLA’s two two-point losses to USC last year, the anger still had not subsided.

“We lost both those games on last-second shots,” Williams said.

“Those USC games were very high-energy games for us, and it’s so hard to lose like that. I think back all the time of a missed free throw here or there, a single turnover . . . it’s really hard.”

Of USC’s 6-5 center, Lisa Leslie, a preseason All-American, Williams says she will have added help this year.

“It’s not hard for me to guard Lisa,” Williams said.

“I’m more of a physical player. I can get her on my hip and keep her out of the key. But if she gets the ball in the low post, it’s hard for me to block her shot. So I try to keep her outside, stay in her face and block her out.

“But we have a 6-5 center now, too. Zrinka (Kristich, a freshman from La Habra) matches up very well with Lisa and she’ll do very well against her in the low post.”

Williams’ goal for 1992-93 is singular: A dunk.

“That’s a goal I’ve had,” she said. “I can grab the rim with my hands, but when I try to palm the ball to dunk it, it slips out. So I need to use two hands.”

Williams was only a basketball player until a high school girls’ volleyball coach named Jean Widdison put Williams on a double track.

“I was just playing basketball until I was a junior in high school,” said Williams, who grew up in Taylorsville, Utah, a suburb of Salt Lake City.

“I was going to every summer basketball camp I could get to in those days,” she said. “I used to ride the train from Salt Lake to Las Vegas, to attend the UNLV summer camp. I went to the USC camp three summers in a row.

“In my junior year of high school, coach Widdison convinced me I should try volleyball, because of my jumping ability. She told me I would always be an outstanding basketball player, but that I could be a great volleyball player.”

Williams also played softball in high school and broke the Utah state prep record in the long jump. And like most of her Taylorsville childhood friends, she learned to ice skate as a toddler.

Her prowess in high school brought recruiting offers from virtually every major college in America.

“I could’ve gone just about anywhere I wanted,” she said. “But UCLA just seemed right for me. I’d spent most of my life in Utah and I wanted to go out of state. I love my coaches here and I love playing in Pauley Pavilion.”

Williams’ father is Nate Williams, who was a college basketball standout at Arizona State before playing nine years in the NBA.

Williams, who turns 22 on Monday, has a 6-foot-4 brother, DeNathan, 20. He plays junior college basketball in Washington.