Elijah Hawkins appreciation thread!

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ESPN has him only at 16 - was he confirmed at 17??
 





Loved his old man. Really impressive stretch from him
 










Spectacular. Awesome game. Thankful to have him. Nickname now "The Hawk"? Maybe we need a nickname thread....
 





Going into tonight's game, Elijah was tied for 12th in assists in D-1 at 6.5/game. After tonight, he's averaging 7.45454545/game. Which would bring him up to 4th.... if nobody else had an above average night.
 

Rex said:
Going into tonight's game, Elijah was tied for 12th in assists in D-1 at 6.5/game. After tonight, he's averaging 7.45454545/game. Which would bring him up to 4th.... if nobody else had an above average night.
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Yes, that's where Sports Reference has him this morning: 4th nationally at 7.5 per game. They also show the 3rd place player (Isaiah Stevens of Colorado State) at 7.5 but he might be fractionally ahead of Hawkins. The national leader is Darius Brown of Utah State with 8 per game.
 

The good thing is that he and Mitchell are both showing improvement. Coming from non power 5 conferences they are starting to adjust and both are Juniors and not just 1 year senior rentals like we've been doing the first 2 years. So this is another foundation we can hopefully build on and they can continue gaining experience.
 

I'm going to go ahead and be the downer here because I prefer that the record to be set against the Badgers.

Seriously though, great to see Hawkins showing improvement. Here's hoping you can keep the turnover numbers down during conference play.
 
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Frink said:
I'm going to go ahead and be the downer here because I prefer that the record to be set against the Badgers.

Seriously though, great to see Hawkins showing improvement. Here's hoping you can keep the turnover numbers down during conference play.
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I agree on the Badgers. At the time, they were 11-0 and ranked 12th in the nation (Gophers were 18th). Coached by Stu Jackson, lead assistant was Stan Van Gundy. Michael Finley, Rashard Griffith, & Tracy Webster weren't bad players. They ended up 18-11, 8-10 in Big Ten. They made the NCAA's after a 47 year drought. IUPUI just doesn't match up for me. It was a "stat stuffer" type game.
Having said that, Congrats Elijah
 


CycloneGopher said:
The good thing is that he and Mitchell are both showing improvement. Coming from non power 5 conferences they are starting to adjust and both are Juniors and not just 1 year senior rentals like we've been doing the first 2 years. So this is another foundation we can hopefully build on and they can continue gaining experience.
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Yeah both Hawkins and Mitchell seem to be adjusting and getting more comfortable. Mitchell has shown a willingness to shoot and Hawkins has shown a strong desire to set guys up. Neither of them is very big but if they take care of the ball we will have some solid backcourt options to fill in around.

One note on the one year thing....Cooper could have come back for a second year and elected not to. Hopefully both of these guys will continue to improve and return for another year.

Awesome game for Hawkins last night and has been fun watching him pile up the assists. That particular stat is so dependent on guys around you hitting shots as well and thankfully the guys are making shots this year. I can recall a bunch of times last year where Cooper would have had a boatload of assists but the shooters couldn't buy a basket.
 

CycloneGopher said:
The good thing is that he and Mitchell are both showing improvement. Coming from non power 5 conferences they are starting to adjust and both are Juniors and not just 1 year senior rentals like we've been doing the first 2 years. So this is another foundation we can hopefully build on and they can continue gaining experience.
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Good spot for some to come in next season.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Yeah both Hawkins and Mitchell seem to be adjusting and getting more comfortable. Mitchell has shown a willingness to shoot and Hawkins has shown a strong desire to set guys up. Neither of them is very big but if they take care of the ball we will have some solid backcourt options to fill in around.

One note on the one year thing....Cooper could have come back for a second year and elected not to. Hopefully both of these guys will continue to improve and return for another year.

Awesome game for Hawkins last night and has been fun watching him pile up the assists. That particular stat is so dependent on guys around you hitting shots as well and thankfully the guys are making shots this year. I can recall a bunch of times last year where Cooper would have had a boatload of assists but the shooters couldn't buy a basket.
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Agreed that both Hawkins and Mitchell are improving, and of course the real test will the the next bunch of Big Ten games against bigger and quicker players. While they both played well against Nebraska, the Huskers are not a physical team-their guards are not physically imposing.

So in both of the games our guards have played against athletic, physical teams (Ohio State and San Francisco) they've struggled. And their play is going to be as important a factor in the teams' success as anything. Here are things I would look for from these two, besides being able to defend bigger guards:

  • Hawkins has to show that he can score while going to the basket-that hasn't been a strength so far, and while he can get around people, he has struggled to score. For the year he's only at 33% for his FGs
  • Mitchell has shown more confidence to put the ball on floor and shoot it, can he create his own shot against other Big Ten guards?
They've both been fun to watch (it's been a while since we've had any speed in the backcourt), and if they can rise to the occasion and continue to improve (along with the improvement of many of the others) this season, this could get interesting.
 


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