NEW YORK -- Marvin Williams just finished his freshman year at North Carolina. He was the team's sixth man, was honorable mention All-Atlantic Coast Conference and averaged a modest 11.3 points per game.

Yet tonight, when the Milwaukee Bucks, who hold the first pick in the NBA draft, make their selection, Williams, a 6-foot-8 forward, could be their guy. And if the Bucks pass on him and opt for Utah's Andrew Bogut instead, Williams almost certainly will be taken by the Atlanta Hawks, who hold the second pick.

So why are teams so high on a player whose resume is so underwhelming? Because Williams has enormous potential, and the NBA draft these days is far more about projecting potential than finding immediate help.

Consider this: Of the 16 players invited to the green room by the NBA for the draft (only the top players are invited to the draft), three are college seniors. That's one more than the number of high school seniors invited, as Martell Webster and Gerald Green are expected to be lottery picks. Williams, however, doesn't believe he should be grouped with high school players because of his "extensive" college experience.

"I think I learned a lot in one year of college. I got to play basketball at the highest level outside of the NBA," Williams said yesterday. "So teams have a good idea of what they are getting with me, and I don't think it is fair that I am always labeled as a guy who just has potential. I did help a team win a national championship this year and I played in a great league with a lot of great players as well."

Williams said he is in favor of the NBA's new age-limit rule (players must be 19 by the end of the year they are looking to be drafted to be eligible) mostly because he believes everyone can benefit from a year of college.

"I matured a lot and I learned a lot both on and off the court," he said. "It was a great experience for me. You get a chance to be away from home for the first time, to grow up and find your way. Even if it is for only one year, it really helped me a lot."

Although Williams played a year in college, he still is an unknown quantity. But his athletic ability is not, and that is why he, as well as Green and Webster, is being considered ahead of a number of other players at the same position who have more experience.

That thinking is one factor that is working against Pitt forward Chris Taft. Had Taft, who is 6-11 and a tremendous athlete, declared himself eligible for the draft after his senior year in high school teams would have judged him on his potential.

Instead, he went to a high-profile program in a high-profile league and the flaws in his game, and in his work ethic, have been exposed. NBA teams now have an excellent scouting report on him and also have seen him play against other top players.

"Unfortunately, that can happen to a player," an NBA scout said. "He can play for only one or two years in college and get labeled as a finished product, or at least a player who may not have much more room for improvement. Chris Taft certainly didn't dominate at Pitt, but he certainly isn't close to reaching his potential. The question most teams have is how bad does he want it."

Taft is still expected to be a first-round pick and could go as high as pick No. 15 to New Jersey, which is said to be searching for a power forward. But there is a real chance he might drop into the latter half of the first round or even slide into the early second round.

Either way, he will become the first Pitt player to be drafted since Vonteego Cummings was the 26th pick (Indiana) of the 1999 draft. If Taft is picked in the first round he will become only the program's third first-rounder (Eric Mobley was an 18th pick of the '94 draft) since '88, when Jerome Lane and Charles Smith were first-round picks.

Pitt coach Jamie Dixon believes Taft will begin a trend for the program.

"It will be a good thing for Chris and a great thing for our program," Dixon said at the NBA pre-draft camp in Chicago earlier this month. "We want kids to understand that we have a program that produces NBA players. We want this to be an annual thing. We want our guys to be drafted."

After Bogut and Williams, Wake Forest's Chris Paul, Illinois' Deron Williams and North Carolina's Raymond Felton, all point guards, are expected to be among the next five players drafted. Also, two international players -- Spain star Fran Vazquez, a 6-10 center, and Russian Yaroslav Korolev, a 6-9 forward -- are expected to be selected in the top 10.