DURHAM, N.C. -- There's nothing special about Jason Williams' feet -- until they start moving.

Then, if an opponent looks the wrong way, he'll feel a shoulder brush by him as Williams drives to the basket for a layup ... or a dish to Carlos Boozer for a dunk ... or a pass out to Mike Dunleavy Jr. or Chris Duhon for a 3-pointer.

Williams' first step to the basket -- the ability to drive past a defender off a dribble -- may be his best attribute, let alone the quickest first step in the game this season.

"It's all about confidence," said the Duke junior guard, the consensus preseason favorite for player of the year, as well as the likely top pick in the 2002 NBA draft. "It's about waking up in the morning and looking at the mirror and saying that you're the best player."

Then, it's about stepping on the court, like he did during a scrimmage this week at Cameron Indoor Stadium, and making some poor defenseless point guard like backup Andre Buckner try and stop him from getting to the basket.

	Once he gets past his defender, Jason Williams can beat a team in a variety of ways.

It can be done, just ask Maryland's Steve Blake, who has done a nifty defensive job on Williams. But it's still a game of chance.

"I always think I can get past someone," Williams said. "If a defender plays you straight up then I always drive on the foot that they have up front. That makes it that much harder for them to recover."

Williams said he actually can get past a player easier if he's jacked up to stop him defensively.

"Because then they get right on me and I can go by them quicker," Williams said. "Those are the guys who are easier to beat because they're trying too hard. If you have a guy who is playing you laid back, that's harder because he's not giving you a side to choose. When they're playing harder then they choose it for you."

Williams said the ratio of players defending him intensely versus laid back is about 90-to-10.

"The main goal for a lot of players is to shut me down," Williams said. "Do that, and it's easier for me."

Williams loves to be in a situation where he's about to go one-on-one. He starts the process by looking at the feet of the foe in front of him, then watching the player's hands, before dipping his shoulder and scooting on by the beaten man. Sometimes, just to be cute, Williams will dip his shoulder to see if the defender will lean the same way, before driving to the opposite side. Sometimes, when he's feeling confident -- which is most of the time -- he'll go to the same side the defender leans by using his strength.

The cat-and-mouse game is played on most possessions and Williams enjoys a high success rate.

"It got easier last year once I was the one targeted to stop," Williams said. "The tighter they guarded me, the easier it was. The best way to defend me was to try and deny me the ball. But then I could get some easy baskets by moving without the ball for backdoor layups. Players would get tired of chasing me around the court."

It's amazing to hear Williams speak with such confidence. He didn't start out that way. There he was in Madison Square Garden as a freshman, looking lost, turning the ball over, shooting 8 for 32 against Stanford and Connecticut in the 1999 Coaches vs. Cancer Classic, and lacking confidence in being a part of two straight Duke losses to start the 1999-2000 season.

	“	It got easier last year once I was the one targeted to stop. The tighter they guarded me, the easier it was. The best way to defend me was to try and deny me the ball. But then I could get some easy baskets by moving without the ball for backdoor layups. Players would get tired of chasing me around the court. ”
		— Jason Williams, Duke junior point guard

Williams' performance was a bit erratic during that first season, and ended with a 6-for-20 game as the Blue Devils lost to Florida in the Sweet 16.

But, does anyone remember that? Did you?

We understand, it's hard when picturing the Williams of last season, who led Duke to the national title; the one who averaged 21.6 points, shot 47.3 percent on 3s, went to the free-throw line 211 times and torched a team like Maryland in coming back from a memorable final minute, 10-point deficit at Cole Field House.

"To play with Jason Williams now is totally different then playing with Jason Williams before because he's matured so much from learning from Coach K (Mike Krzyzewski) and the whole staff," said Duke teammate and fellow New Jersey native Dahntay Jones, who redshirted last season after transferring from Rutgers.

"Jason is on top of his game as much as I've ever seen," Jones adds. "He has the physical and mental attributes right now. He's put them both together so well."

And, this past summer, he continued to do so by himself.

Williams was drained after the 2000-01 season. Basketball had been literally year round for him after his freshman season. It started by attending the USA Basketball trials in Colorado Springs, Colo., last summer, followed by leading Syracuse's Jim Boeheim-coached World Championships for Young Men qualifying team in Brazil in July. He then went to Hawaii in September to help prepare the 2000 U.S. Olympic team as a member of a select U.S. college all-star team.

Then came the Duke season and everyone knows what happened with the Blue Devils. School in the spring, and keeping a lower profile from questions about the 2001 NBA draft consumed him. And that's why he took a pass on USA Basketball in the summer, deciding against playing for Boeheim again in Japan.

"I didn't play competitive basketball at all, just working out, all summer in New Jersey," Williams said. "It was the hardest thing I've done."

When he arrived at Duke this year, the first thing he did was play pickup basketball and break his left, non-shooting hand. The cast came off before practice started Oct. 13, but he is wearing a protective glove for a few weeks. The glove hides a nasty lump on the top of his hand that he said would go away with time. But it's not inhibiting him at all, at least not in practice. If anything, it's got him even more excited play and start driving on someone other than Buckner.

"I'm so pumped up to play right now that it's sick," Williams said. "I've got such a new vibe about basketball. College basketball is the longest season in college sports, but now I know I'll be ready for it. I've got a different view of the game now that I watched everyone else get ready. I learned so much about the game that I didn't know."

And that should make it even more difficult for someone to stop him -- no matter which route he decides to take to the basket.

Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com.