YouTube Gold: Zion Williamson And Duke Destroy Kentucky

Perhaps the greatest debut in college basketball history.

In 2019, some of us had an inkling of what was coming. Everyone knew Zion Williamson from sensational social media posts, but no one had seen him play college level basketball. You knew, as big as he was, that he was an athletic freak. Very few people understood that he had guard skills, and that he could essentially play any position on the court.

Everyone would learn in his first college game against Kentucky.

Williamson was the talk of the country the next morning. He started the game with a three pointer and ultimately dominated Kentucky. It wasn’t just his scoring. It was his rebounding, his passing and the sense that, both athletically and basketball-wise, he was on a different level than anyone we had seen in years.

This was really underscored by one play in the second half: Williamson decapitated - there’s no other way to put it - a Kentucky attempt near the basket, simply wrestling the ball away from the shooter and taking off with it.

But what made it special was the bounce pass he made, through traffic, to hit Tre Jones for a layup.

It was the sort of play you might have seen from Larry Bird or Magic Johnson, certainly not something you’d expect from a freshman in his first college game.

This video is the full game so enjoy.