Assistant Coach Ashley Williams Looks to Give Indiana Advantage Versus Alma Mater
SAN ANTONIO, Texas — Indiana hasn't played a game against NC State since 2016, but there is one person on the Hoosiers' sideline that is very familiar with Wolfpack program.
Indiana assistant coach Ashley Williams played four years at NC State from 2013-2017.
She started out as a walk-on, earned a scholarship and then started just about every game as an upperclassmen at NC State under head coach Wes Moore. Despite graduating with a 3.9 GPA in industrial engineering, Williams told Moore she wanted to go into coaching.
"She is on a fast track. She has a passion for the game, so because of that she works really hard at it, and she's very intelligent," Moore said. "I could see her being a head coach at a very young age."
Williams joined Indiana as a two-year graduate manager from 2017-2019, watching the team win the WNIT in 2018 and advance to the Round of 32 in 2019.
She left Indiana to take an assistant coaching job at Furman during the 2020 season, and in her only season with the Paladins, the program finished 19-12 overall and 8-6 in SoCon play for a fourth-place finish in the league.
This offseason, Janese Constantine moved to Alabama with her husband, Paul, as they both took roles with Alabama's women's basketball and football programs, respectively.
So that left an opening on Indiana's coaching staff, and the Hoosiers brought Williams back on as an assistant coach.
Now, Williams' past and present meet in the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA Tournament.
"Outside of coaching and wanting the Hoosiers to win, I'd say NC State is her second favorite team right now when we're not playing them," Indiana head coach Teri Moren said. "I know that she loves coach (Moore), and the nice thing for us, I think we kind of have an advantage because she is the lead on this scouting report. She has a little bit of an insight on how she can prepare our group. Just tendencies that we're gonna see come Saturday against a really outstanding basketball team."
Williams isn't too far removed from the Wolfpack program, so Moore knows she might recognize a lot of the sets his team will look to run on Saturday.
"She played for us a few years ago, so she knows just about everything we do, so that's gonna be interesting, too," Moore said. "I might have to switch up the signals a little bit or disguise things."
Both teams have won their first two NCAA Tournament games by double digits, and both teams finished second in the regular season in their respective conferences.
NC State won the ACC Tournament, which is why the Wolfpack were awarded a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Indiana is the No. 4 seed in the Mercado Region, and the Hoosiers are appearing in their first Sweet Sixteen in program history.
"They're always well-prepared, well-coached and their kids have high basketball IQ," Moore said. "It'll be interesting with her (Williams) over there on the other sideline, but very proud of her, outstanding young lady."
Indiana and NC State are scheduled to tipoff at 6 p.m. ET on ESPN2.
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