New assistant Jamaal Williams fitting in with UNLV basketball

UNLV head basketball coach Kevin Kruger and new assistant Jamaal Williams go way back, and Williams probably still has the bruises to show for it.

As a 6-foot-6, 230-pound forward, Williams was known for being a physical frontcourt presence during his playing days at New Mexico and Washington, and his rough and tumble style helped Washington reach back-to-back Sweet 16s in 2005 and 2006.

Almost as memorable as those tournament runs were his run-ins with Pac-10 rival Arizona State, and the Sun Devils’ scrappy point guard.

Though Williams is now working as an assistant on Kruger’s coaching staff at UNLV, it doesn’t stop him from offering an honest scouting report on his boss.

“He was a good player,” Williams recalls of Kruger. “Being a big guy, you’re going to run into the guards who want to set little dirty screens. He was a feisty competitor, so he caught me with a few rib shots throughout our battles. We played Arizona State about five times in my career, and every single time he was that tough guard who could get underneath your skin.”

The mutual respect built from those on-court matchups was still there when Kruger and Williams entered the coaching ranks. While Kruger started at the college level, Williams’s entry point was high-school ball, serving as an assistant to former Washington teammate Brandon Roy at two Seattle-area powerhouse programs. Williams then took over the Seattle Rotary AAU team, which is known for producing top-tier college talent.

That’s where Kruger and Williams really reconnected, as they found themselves in close proximity at various AAU events, Williams shepherding his team of prospects and Kruger on the hunt for his next big recruit.

“If we were on the road, we’d spend time around each other watch games together,” Kruger says, “so yeah I’ve known him for a really long time. I know he’s a really hard worker, incredibly competitive and driven.”

Williams made the move to the college game last year by joining Portland State as an assistant under Jase Coburn. And when Kruger found himself with an opening on his staff late in the offseason (after Brandon Chappell left for Texas), he thought of Williams.

There was little time to get acclimated, as Williams was hired on Aug. 10 and UNLV set off on its exhibition trip to Canada four days later. He’s settled in now — he, his wife and their four children have fully moved into their house in Las Vegas — but Williams remembers those first days as a whirlwind.

“They were so welcoming and receptive to me,” Williams says. “Coach Kruger didn’t waste any time. First day, I get off the plane from Seattle, I walk into Mendenhall and he’s like, ‘Go downstairs and change, we’re going to practice.’ I’m like, ‘Practice? I don’t even know what’s going on.’ But they threw me right in the fire and I figured it out. You learn that basketball is all the same, there’s just different terminology.”

Williams says his coaching philosophy is an amalgam of the three head coaches he played for collegiately, with New Mexico’s Fran Fraschilla and Ritchie McKay and Washington’s Lorenzo Romar all having imparted different lessons. One commonality is attention to detail, as Williams values doing things the right way every time.

UNLV can certainly benefit from his experience on the recruiting trail. Williams worked with four McDonald’s All-Americans and six future NBA players during his time with Rotary Seattle, and he has an innate ability to connect with young players on a real level.

“The biggest thing for me in recruiting is, I’ve been through it,” he says. “I was a recruit, a Top-100 kid coming out of high school. I had a lot of people calling my phone. I know what those kids are going through, so I try to create that bond to where they trust me and they want to be a part of what we have here at UNLV.”

With six weeks to go until the start of the season, Williams is enjoying his work on the court as well as the work that goes into building a true team.

“The coaching staff has been great, the players have been great. I feel like I’ve built a lot of relationships and will continue to build those relationships as the practices and the season go on.”

And, of course, he’s always on the lookout for his boss’s pesky elbows.

“He’ll probably try to catch me walking down the hall one day,” Williams says. “But he’s been good so far.”

Mike Grimala can be reached at 702-948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Mike on Twitter at twitter.com/mikegrimala.