Asuma

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WilliamsArenaGuy said:
I agree. His potential is sky high. He must become a consistent 3 point shooter. If he does that, he could be All-Big Ten.
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Always thought Asuma could be Ja Morant/Russell Westbrook type. Doesn't quite have the athleticism but in terms of getting to the rim. Hope the outside and overall game continue to develop over the next year or two.
 

There is so much improvement in Asuma's game this season, it was fun to watch. He will continue to improve. His weakness is with his handles on the dribble. The ball should be like a yo-yo for a point guard and Asuma is still a bit shaky. Also, we have mentioned the inconsistency in his shot. These are the things he can work on in the off-season and Niko is a perfect coach to help him keep improving.
 


FinnGopher said:
There is so much improvement in Asuma's game this season, it was fun to watch. He will continue to improve. His weakness is with his handles on the dribble. The ball should be like a yo-yo for a point guard and Asuma is still a bit shaky. Also, we have mentioned the inconsistency in his shot. These are the things he can work on in the off-season and Niko is a perfect coach to help him keep improving.
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Interesting thoughts on his handles. I agree he struggles in breaking down the opposing guards and getting to the bucket…but I am always confident that he can handle the pressure of getting the ball up court against pressure.
 

Love the fact he was/is developing a little floater game...he's athetic enough to drive to the basket and that little pull up/push shot is so effective. Lost art.

I also love his attitude. He seems like a leader already and we forget he's only in his 2nd year coming from a tiny high school. I think he has the "it" factor. Fingers crossed.
 

I think his defense improved a lot. Late in the season, he went to the rim more and was pretty successful.
 




cheeseheadgophfan said:
Love the fact he was/is developing a little floater game...he's athetic enough to drive to the basket and that little pull up/push shot is so effective. Lost art.

I also love his attitude. He seems like a leader already and we forget he's only in his 2nd year coming from a tiny high school. I think he has the "it" factor. Fingers crossed.
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Maybe he was doing it but don't recall him using that floater much early in the season. Has become a bit of a go-to move for him over the final part of year and he seems good at it.

He made big strides from his freshman year to his sophomore year but the best is almost certainly yet to come from him as he continues to develop.
 

cheeseheadgophfan said:
Love the fact he was/is developing a little floater game...he's athetic enough to drive to the basket and that little pull up/push shot is so effective. Lost art.

I also love his attitude. He seems like a leader already and we forget he's only in his 2nd year coming from a tiny high school. I think he has the "it" factor. Fingers crossed.
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That floater is a difficult shot! I love that he has worked that into his game. It’s so difficult to defend. It will be even more effective next season if he has a decent post player that can be at the rim. The defense will have to choose and that floater will always be open if they don’t want to give up a layup or dunk.
 

I've been impressed with his game around the rim lately. He's done well finishing at the basket.
 

Does IA have a brother who can play BB for us? 🤔
 





GophersInIowa said:
I've been impressed with his game around the rim lately. He's done well finishing at the basket.
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He needs to improve his offensive game, especially shooting the ball. He shot 40% for the season and a little over 30% from 3. Also turns the ball over too much.

He plays hard and seems to have a good attitude, which leads me to believe he is a pretty coachable player. I think he is overrated here because he is a hometown kid, but hopefully he improves and can become a top 25 B10 player.
 

gopherbadgerman said:
He needs to improve his offensive game, especially shooting the ball. He shot 40% for the season and a little over 30% from 3. Also turns the ball over too much.

He plays hard and seems to have a good attitude, which leads me to believe he is a pretty coachable player. I think he is overrated here because he is a hometown kid, but hopefully he improves and can become a top 25 B10 player.
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I think his IQ will only get better and that will help him. Sometimes I feel he struggles to balance when to be aggressive and to be more of a distributer. It all comes with experience. I think a kid from Cherry, MN at the D1 level should be expected to be his best in years 3&4.
 

gopherbadgerman said:
He needs to improve his offensive game, especially shooting the ball. He shot 40% for the season and a little over 30% from 3. Also turns the ball over too much.

He plays hard and seems to have a good attitude, which leads me to believe he is a pretty coachable player. I think he is overrated here because he is a hometown kid, but hopefully he improves and can become a top 25 B10 player.
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My comments were specifically about his improved ability to finish around the rim. In his last 10 regular season games + 1 Big Ten Tourney game, he shot 65% on 2 point shots. Previously he was shooting 46%.

I agree he has some improving to do but I think he has a lot of talent. If he takes a similar step forward in from season 2 to 3 that he did from season 1 to 2, he'll be a really good player.

2.5 turnovers per 40 minutes is not terrible for a guy that handles the ball a lot. But he does have some really bad ones once in awhile, I would agree.
 

Tons of talent

Needs to improve his handles and 3 pt shot.

Its tough to judge his shooting ability, given some of his shot selection is predicated on being part of a very short rotation (having no legs) and the offense putting us into a lot of contested 3s at times.

Plus defender due to his size, athleticism, and physicality.
 

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These are the "combo guards" in the B10, for only conference games - the vast majority of these are in the green for turnover percentage. Asuma really is not good compared to his peers on that stat. As an aside, Thornton is a friggin' stud.
 

He is a really good finisher, either using his body to shield defenders or that mid-paint floater, those are becoming almost automatic. The only thing missing is a consistent outside shot.
 

formerlybis said:
View attachment 43093

These are the "combo guards" in the B10, for only conference games - the vast majority of these are in the green for turnover percentage. Asuma really is not good compared to his peers on that stat. As an aside, Thornton is a friggin' stud.
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I think the other thing these rankings show is the importance of experience in the B1G when you see that 5 of the 8 guys above him are Seniors. I thought we saw some strong improvement in his first full year as a starter. I look forward to seeing what he can do playing for a coach like Niko with another year under his belt.
 

formerlybis said:
View attachment 43093

These are the "combo guards" in the B10, for only conference games - the vast majority of these are in the green for turnover percentage. Asuma really is not good compared to his peers on that stat. As an aside, Thornton is a friggin' stud.
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I think Asuma is pretty much where we all should have expected him to be at this point in his career. Good but not Elite prospect coming in. Got his feet wet as a freshman. Got thrown deep into the actual fire sooner than expected, due to injury to the starting point guard early during his sophomore season. Showed promise, but also took his lumps early in the year as he adjusted to heavy minutes as a starting point guard in the Big Ten. As one would hope a promising sophomore getting a lot of minutes would do, he has really improved a lot in most aspects of his game.

Would imagine he will be spending a lot of his summer improving his ball-handling and getting a lot of 3-point shots up (though I would imagine that if he starts slowly like JCJ did this season, there will be posters thinking that, "because I didn't actually see or get official progress reports about him living in the gym, getting up shots this summer, I will assume he didn't do any of that). Remember all the early comments about JCJ should never be allowed to shoot 3's?
 

His 3 point percentage would be a lot higher if he didn't have to jack up 3's at the end of shot clocks....i.e. being handed a grenade. That happened A LOT to him and was the product of not a lot of guys who could create their own shots and being physically exhausted.
 

MaxyJR1 said:
I think his IQ will only get better and that will help him. Sometimes I feel he struggles to balance when to be aggressive and to be more of a distributer. It all comes with experience. I think a kid from Cherry, MN at the D1 level should be expected to be his best in years 3&4.
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Yep.....he was better this year then he was last year and he will almost certainly be better next year then he was this year as he keeps working on his game and developing.

Sometimes it feels like fans expect a player to be a finished product early in their college career but most don't really hit their stride until they have been in college for multiple seasons. Unfortunately we aren't really in a position to be able to land those guys that are ready to dominate from day 1.
 

I keep seeing comments about how he needs to improve his 3 pt shooting. I feel he only needs to be average in that aspect to keep defenses honest. His strength should be scoring from the paint using his size and physicality. He's proven very effective in that regard when he attacks with confidence. It seemed some attempts he made that were blocked earlier in the year made him a bit gun shy, then he got more aggressive as we got to the end of the season. Too often when he had a chance to attack and finish or draw a foul, he would pick up his dribble and kick it back out. I am looking for him to seize on more of those opportunities as an upper classman.
 

GopherBlood777 said:
I keep seeing comments about how he needs to improve his 3 pt shooting. I feel he only needs to be average in that aspect to keep defenses honest. His strength should be scoring from the paint using his size and physicality. He's proven very effective in that regard when he attacks with confidence. It seemed some attempts he made that were blocked earlier in the year made him a bit gun shy, then he got more aggressive as we got to the end of the season. Too often when he had a chance to attack and finish or draw a foul, he would pick up his dribble and kick it back out. I am looking for him to seize on more of those opportunities as an upper classman.
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Did you miss the multiple swats that Rutgers had when he attempted to drive? He gave up a wide open three from the corner only to get his drive utterly rejected in the paint. As a point guard, he needs a very consistent three point shot from all areas of the circle.
Isaac has improved exponentially from his first game, but he must improve greatly to get to where he wants to be. He has a high ceiling so I look forward to the improvements in the next two seasons. He finally has a coach who can get him to his ceiling.
 

FinnGopher said:
Did you miss the multiple swats that Rutgers had when he attempted to drive? He gave up a wide open three from the corner only to get his drive utterly rejected in the paint. As a point guard, he needs a very consistent three point shot from all areas of the circle.
Isaac has improved exponentially from his first game, but he must improve greatly to get to where he wants to be. He has a high ceiling so I look forward to the improvements in the next two seasons. He finally has a coach who can get him to his ceiling.
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I understand what happened in the Rutgers game, I still think attacking the basket is his strength. With more experience I expect to avoid that in the future. He is still far more efficient from inside the paint then outside of it. At this point in his career, I'm not sure his shooting from outside will get that much better, but it would be nice to avoid those 1/8 games from 3. Of course if he should continue working on his form to develop greater consistency, but he has a natural advantage with his size as a guard that he needs to exploit to a greater degree in his next two season.
 

GopherBlood777 said:
I understand what happened in the Rutgers game, I still think attacking the basket is his strength. With more experience I expect to avoid that in the future. He is still far more efficient from inside the paint then outside of it. At this point in his career, I'm not sure his shooting from outside will get that much better, but it would be nice to avoid those 1/8 games from 3. Of course if he should continue working on his form to develop greater consistency, but he has a natural advantage with his size as a guard that he needs to exploit to a greater degree in his next two season.
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Going with your flow, Isaac needs to improve his handles on the dribble. Presently he is loose and the ball is precariously open to being tipped and stolen when he dribbles. He needs to tighten it up.
 

The reason Asuma was listed as a "combo G" on Torvik is that the primary PG was Reynolds (who also turned it over way too much, but was much, much better with assists). I think the Gophers should want a better PG than Asuma, period - not that he's all that well-suited to be the 2-guard either, but the primary PG is the most important offensive player in college basketball. Look around.
 

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