Mark Gottfried was a college basketball coach for 33 seasons, coaching hundreds of players, and coaching alongside dozens of coaches. When you ask him to sum up one of those former players, Mo Williams, he pauses for just a moment before landing on two words.
“Home run.”
Not for Mo. Not for Kentucky. For both.
“I thought it was a home run for Mo, but I thought it was a home run for Kentucky basketball,” Gottfried told KY Insider. “An absolute home run.”
That’s the endorsement behind Kentucky’s newest hire, coming from a man who has known Williams for the better part of three decades.
Gottfried recruited Williams as a McDonald’s All-American out of Jackson, Mississippi, coached him to SEC Freshman of the Year and Sporting News National Freshman of the Year honors at Alabama, and later hired him for his first coaching job at Cal State Northridge.
Watching Williams from every angle the game allows, few people are better equipped to tell Big Blue Nation what Kentucky is getting in its newest staff member.
In high school, Mo Williams was one of the most talented guards in the nation. Gottfried saw it, but so did everyone else, and he had to battle against the likes of North Carolina and Kentucky to land his services.
In that pursuit, Gottfried learned what separated Williams from the rest of the guards in his class wasn’t just his ability; it was his foundation.
“Mo and their family, they were kind of old school,” Gottfried recalled. “Mom was a school teacher. Dad worked at Jackson State. Brother had gone to West Point. Their family unit was so good and so strong. The more I recruited him, you just realized, man, this is just a great family. Got great values and understood hard work, honesty, and loyalty.”
Once Williams arrived at Alabama, it didn’t take long for him to assert himself as the leader of the team, playing the most minutes of anyone on the roster as a freshman. There was a moment where Gottfried knew it was special, and it happened to come against Kentucky.
“I remember playing Kentucky, and there was a long rebound on a play, came back to about the foul line area. He got the rebound and turned, and Kentucky had two guys getting back on defense. He turned with the ball that just sprinted, sliced right in between the two of them, and just ran down and laid it in. He was so quick and fast, and I remember looking at my assistants going, ‘Did you just see that? Did you actually watch what I just saw?’”
Williams went on to win SEC Freshman of the Year, was named All-SEC as a sophomore, and enjoyed a 13-year NBA career, during which he was named an All-Star (2009) and won an NBA championship (2016). In the twilight of his career, he began to take on a mentorship role and helped him realize he wanted to become a coach. After having him as a player, Gottfried offered Williams a position on his staff at Cal State Northridge.
“I remember calling him and asking, ‘Do you want a coach?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘Well, this is a place where I can put you out on the road tomorrow.’ He said, ‘Let’s go.’ He was able to jump right in and get experience in recruiting, on the floor coaching, and all the things that go along with his coaching. He jumped all over it.”
Having known him for so long, Gottfriend believed that Williams would be a great coach, but there was one thing that surprised him.
“I didn’t know how much he loved to be in the gym with the players,” he said. “He loves it. He wants it bad. And you’re talking about player development — If I had a young player or a son right now who was a guard, I would want him to recruit my son.”
Gottfried provided an example of Williams’ player development with tangible results: two players, Darius Brown and Elijah Harkless, who signed with Cal State Northridge despite having no other offers. Harkless, the latter of the two, went on to put up 12 points and 6 rebounds against Kentucky in 2021 after transferring to Oklahoma.
“Neither one of them had another division one basketball offer,” he highlighted. “Both are with NBA franchises right now. Elijah’s with the Utah Jazz, and Darius is with the Cleveland Cavaliers. And I think a big reason for that is Mo Williams. He got in the gym with them. I’m talking about every day now, along with his sons, by the way. I think even at Kentucky, he can help those guys improve dramatically.”
“If those kids think he’ll walk in there and just coddle them every day, that won’t happen. He will challenge them every single day to get better. But he’s gonna do it in a way where there’s a lot of respect, and they’ll gravitate to him.”
Player development and his ability to relate to younger players are two important skills that Williams brings to Kentucky, but he also brings six years of head coaching experience, which most assistants don’t have.
“He’s been there. He’s had to call timeouts. He’s had to make hard decisions about players. He’s done everything,” Gottfried said. “A lot of assistant coaches have never been head coaches. They don’t truly understand the weight on the head coach. Mo does.”
The work ethic he had as a player has carried over to his coaching, especially on the recruiting trail, where he has already been working hard for the Wildcats.
“He’ll outwork everybody in recruiting,” Gottfried said. “He’ll outwork everybody in the gym. He loves the game. He loves basketball. He loves being around it.”
“He works extremely hard. He is incredibly humble. Never one time had any type of air about himself that he was all that, like some great players. Mo approached the game like he wasn’t even ranked in the top 500. It was crazy. He has no pretense that anything will ever ever be given to him. He’s worked hard for everything he has.”
Williams earned this opportunity through years of hard work, joining one of college basketball’s most iconic programs. He will look to capitalize on it, bringing the adaptability he has as a 13-year NBA veteran, and help Mark Pope and Kentucky turn the tide in a pivotal season.
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