GopherHole.com Player Spotlight: Adam Boone

Best Game: vs. Furman on November 30th. People might tend to scoff at referring to a game against Furman, but considering the Gophers had to go to OT to beat the Paladins, Adam’s play in this game was key to avoiding a crushing early-season loss. Adam had a stellar game, finishing with 17 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists, and 2 steals in 36 minutes of play. He shot a solid 6 for 10 from the field and was a blazing 4 for 5 from 3-point range. Adam also only turned the ball over twice despite having it in his hands much of the game.

Game to Forget: at Penn State on January 7th. This was the devastating loss that began the Gophers’ 0-9 start in the Big Ten, and it was a sub-par game for Adam. It wasn’t his lowest scoring game of the season (he finished with 5 points), and he did dish out 5 assists, but his 5 turnovers and 1 for 7 shooting from the field (1 for 6 on 3-pointers) were part of the reason why Minnesota couldn’t hold on for an important victory. Adam was outplayed by the Nittany Lions’ young backcourt and had some struggles against their quickness.

Positive Number: 16/19. The former is the number of games (out of the 30 he played) where Adam dished out at least 4 assists, and the latter is the number of times he had 2 or fewer turnovers. For a guy who doesn’t have great quickness and isn’t a dazzling ball-handler (and who is really a little out of position at the point in my opinion), those are pretty good numbers. Looking back on the season, for the most part Adam did a decent job of taking care of the ball, and he had several games where he was able to set up his teammates for easy scores.

Negative Number: 28.9%. That was Adam’s 3-point field goal percentage, and it’s really the number that defined his season for many fans. Billed (at least by me) as the team’s most consistent long-range shooter coming into the season, Adam really struggled to find his touch. He shot a very solid 43% as a sophomore at North Carolina, and he lit it up during fall workouts, but there were only a handful of games where he had a hot hand during the season. That’s one of the reasons (there were several) that teams were able to collapse on Kris Humphries so consistently.

Development Priority #1: Confidence. Adam is a guy I never expected to say this about, as he’s always displayed a lot of confidence and leadership on the court over the years, but I didn’t see that confidence last season. Adam is a very good 3-point shooter, and he needs to believe that when he steps out on the court. Focussing on the fundamentals (like squaring up, etc) certainly never hurts, and practice is always recommended, but Adam’s shooting struggles were primarily mental in my opinion. An extra year of experience should help, and I’m also hopefully that being able to relinquish some of the ball-handling responsibilities and get into more of a catch-and-shoot role might help him get things going this year.

Development Priority #2: Shot Fakes. Adam (like most players) certainly has several areas he can improve on, but this is one that just popped into my head and kind of stuck. I’m really not sure if I’ve ever seen Adam use many shot fakes. He can shoot, he can drive, and he has a decent mid-range game, but he never seems to mix them together. So when he gets the ball behind the arc, defenders know he’s probably going to shoot a jumper. Since Adam also has a bit of a slow release, that means he needs quite a bit of space to get his shot off. Use a few shot fakes to get defenders off their feet and then make them pay by penetrating, and they’ll start coming out at you a little slower in the future.

Ideal Stat Line: 12 points, 4.5 rebounds, 4 assists, 1.5 steals. This is a bit of a shot in the dark. My hope/expectation had been that Adam would be spending more time at the ‘2’ this year with the addition of Rico Tucker at the point. That would make Adam more of a scoring option, hopefully bump up his shooting numbers, and probably decrease his assist totals. The likely return of Moe Hargrow though now means that Adam could again be looking at more time at the point. Either way, the Gophers could really use double-digit scoring from Adam. I’d also like to see him increase his rebounding numbers, as his strength gives him a lot of potential there. I’ll base his assist totals on him splitting time at both guard positions.