Connor Williams-led Arizona State goes from 'broken' to NCAA lead
Those were the words of Arizona State head coach Matt Thurmond after the Sun Devils failed to qualify for the NCAA Championship as the top seed in the 2024 NCAA Ranch Santa Fe Regional and winners of three of their past four events, including the final Pac-12 Championship.
'There's just a certain psychology that comes after you've been broken,' Thurmond explained at the time, 'and it's different than the psychology that you have after you win.'
The healing process for Arizona State this season has included three wins, spaced evenly throughout the season, along with five runner-up finishes, including the Sun Devils' inaugural Big 12 Championship and the NCAA Bremerton Regional, where Arizona State cruised by 26 shots over Utah, which finished sixth as the first team out.
If last year the Sun Devils were 'numb to the reality of what it takes' to succeed in the postseason, then this time Thurmond's team is fully aware. They entered this week's NCAA Championship relatively under the radar and as newbies having never seen Omni La Costa. Sophomore Connor Williams is San Diego area native, though none of his 100-plus rounds here prior to this week came after Gil Hanse's re-do.
'I was a little worried after missing last year that we would be behind as far as course knowledge,' Thurmond said. 'We had never seen it until the practice round, and I didn't watch one minute of coverage last year.'
And yet through 36 holes, Arizona State paces the field at 13 under, three shots better than Oklahoma and 20 clear of Illinois, which sits in ninth and is currently the first team out of match play. The Sun Devils threw out Michael Mjaaseth's 1-under 71 in Saturday's second round and boast two players in the top 5 individually in Josele Ballester (T-5) and Williams, who is tied with Ole Miss' Michael La Sasso at 9 under, four shots better than third place. Thurmond was especially pleased with just six bogeys and no doubles from his counting scorers in Round 2.
'It's nice to get that out of mind,' Thurmond added, 'that we can play this course just like anybody else.'
Nobody is playing it better than Williams right now.
Williams, who is from nearby Escondido, wasn't the most decorated junior player when former Arizona State player Luke Potter, who now plays for Texas, told Thurmond shortly after committing to the Sun Devils in ninth grade that he should next look at Williams.
'He's not that good yet,' Potter said, according to Thurmond, 'but he does everything right, works super hard, is an awesome guy and we want him at ASU.'
'We started watching him,' Thurmond added, 'and he committed shortly thereafter.'
With Ballester and Preston Summerhays soaking up much of the attention and expectations, Williams has sneakily developed into one of the best players in the country. He's ranked 35th in the country and tallied three top-8s in the fall. But he started the spring by finishing outside the top 60 in Hawaii and T-50 at Pauma Valley, missing the Sun Devils' win at the Cabo Collegiate in between to play in the Puerto Rico Open, where he missed the cut. He struggled for the next few events until Thurmond decided to throw him into a two-man, 54-hole qualifier for Big 12s with freshman Peer Wernicke.
Williams won that qualifier, then finished runner-up at Southern Hills. He followed with a T-5 at regionals.
'That was big to get through that qualifier,' Williams said, 'and then have a good week at Big 12s and gain that confidence back.'
Added Thurmond: 'People have no idea how good this guy is. He wins over and over and over again in drills we do every day in practice. … He hadn't been in a qualifier like that for a long time, but he deserved it. He had to prove to himself that he was the guy that should be there, and he did.'
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