Priscilla Williams’ collegiate journey culminates at Jacksonville, where her resilience led to historic achievements, including becoming ASUN’s player of the year.<\/p>\n
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 After six years, four schools and more than 100 games, the wild ride that has been Priscilla Williams\u2019 collegiate basketball career is coming to an end.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s my final stop and I feel like I found home,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n
While the 6-foot-2 guard wouldn\u2019t change anything about her unpredictable path, finishing her journey at Jacksonville University certainly wasn\u2019t on her radar as an 18-year-old.<\/p>\n
Williams was a five-star recruit, a McDonald\u2019s All-American and the No. 9 overall prospect in the Class of 2020, which included now-WNBA stars Caitlin Clark, Paige Bueckers and Angel Reese.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think my story has kind of built me into the person I am today,\u201d Williams said. \u201cI feel like God has placed me in certain positions and let me meet certain people, and it\u2019s just helped me grow as a person on and off the court.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s been through a lot of things that you think would break a kid,\u201d Jacksonville women’s basketball head coach Special Jennings said. \u201cHer resilience is powerful, it\u2019s impactful, and I\u2019m just proud of that young lady.\u201d<\/p>\n
Williams spent her freshman year at Syracuse before a head injury ended her season and forced her to sit out the next year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really hard,\u201d Williams said. \u201cI had to find myself outside of basketball for a while, which was new for me. My whole life had always been basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now a graduate student, Williams split the next two years between South Florida and Oregon before eventually arriving at Jacksonville mentally battered and bruised.<\/p>\n
\u201cPriscilla was in a space that I thought I could help her out of,\u201d Jennings said. \u201cShe saw her career going one way and it was kind of going the opposite direction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jennings helped restore that belief in Williams, who will now forever be remembered as a program-changing player for the Dolphins.<\/p>\n
On Monday, Williams became the first player in JU history to be named ASUN player of the year, ranking first in rebounds in the conference and second in points scored. Williams has also produced 10 double-doubles this season and set a single-game school record with 44 points, all while leading Jacksonville to its first 20-win season since 2017.<\/p>\n
\u201cI definitely got my confidence back,\u201d Williams said. \u201cI fell in love with the game again, so that was a big thing for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat young lady is a unicorn,\u201d Jennings said. \u201cEven recruiting for the next class, you don\u2019t replace Priscilla Williams. I\u2019m just cherishing every moment that I have with her while she\u2019s here.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the No. 2 seeds in the tournament, the duo hopes an ASUN championship will be one of those moments. It would be just the second in program history.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Williams and two other players will have to sit out their quarterfinal game against either UNF or West Georgia after they were involved in an on-court scuffle in the final minutes of the River City Rumble on Friday.<\/p>\n
The quarterfinal game is set for Thursday at 5 p.m. at VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Priscilla Williams’ collegiate journey culminates at Jacksonville, where her resilience led to historic achievements, including becoming ASUN’s player…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-175634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}