Mathieu is ranked 11th in both assists and steals per game, and ranks fourth in assist/turnover ratio at 3.91.
Funny how things can change in one month. One day you’re sitting there lamenting what appears to be a bad loss to a mediocre Big East team and a squeaker against a middling SEC team; the next you’re looking at an 8-game winning streak with seven consecutive games of 84 points or more while St. John’s climbs the AP Top 25 ladder. November and December are fickle times.
But how do you gauge the non-conference season? I’m as guilty as anyone of thinking the sky was falling when the team couldn’t get the Red Storm and only won in spite of themselves against Georgia. Yet, three weeks later St. John’s is nearly a top-ten team, RPI wise, while the Georgia win continues to pay nice dividends. Now the Gophers are playing at perhaps the highest level they have all season, fresh off a 108-point performance against a real life Division I team.
Still, does 7 straight wins over directional schools really solidify anything? Apparently they only matter if you lose, which Michigan, Michigan State and Nebraska can all attest to. Otherwise, it’s just business as usual. Still, when the Gophers are scoring roughly 90 points per game and giving up a whole lot less, it’s hard to extrapolate a little bit, especially when you can compare what they’re doing now to what they were doing in late November.
Either way, time will tell shortly how all this translates into the Big Ten. Heading into the conference season at a high level certainly beats the alternative.
GOOD – Spreading the offensive wealth
Earlier in the non-conference season, the Gophers had little, if any, of an identity on offense. No one really seemed to want the ball or do the heavy lifting; the interior game was suspect and offensive leadership was lacking. In fact, it was supremely unclear just who was going to do all the scoring this year. Carlos Morris tried his best, but at the end of the day looked more like a chucker than anything else, often settling for poor shot selection and low-percentage attempts.
The Gophers must have put something in the water after the NIT Tip-Off because, since then, they’ve been on another level. Sure, the quality of the opponent has been suspect, but the problems they encountered earlier in the season haven’t proven to be long-lasting. Morris is relying more heavily on his all-around game, the team is getting out in transition nicely, and Mo Walker is hanging on the ball a little better. And Deandre Mathieu, have mercy. He’s playing on another level (we’ll get to that later). The Gophers are 12th in the nation in points per game and are an astounding first in the nation in assists per game. More importantly, they aren’t relying on any single player to do the scoring. Andre Hollins quietly leads the team in scoring, and six players average more than 9.5 points per game, including true freshman Nate Mason. Depth was a concern with Daquien McNeil and Josh Martin no longer with the team, but their offensive impact, at least, isn’t being felt.
The stymied offense that we saw in New York now appears quite distant and, for now at least, the offense is clicking better than it has at any point in the season, which is exactly the place to be in heading into the grueling conference slate.
BAD – Defensive rebounding … when will it hurt?
With all of the accolades afforded to the defense so far this year, it’s hard to see them as anything but dominant. But beneath the shiny exterior of a squad that leads the conference in steals and turnover margin is lurks a poor effort when it comes to defensive rebounding. The thing is, it hasn’t played much of a spoiler at all this season. But as it stands today, the Gophers rank 2nd to last in the conference in defensive rebounding margin, pulling down a mere 67 percent of potential rebounds. That’s a lot of second chances afforded to the opponent.
Yet, with so many turnovers forced and the offense playing at a high level, the weakness in the defensive rebounding game has been masked. Case in point, the game against the Western Carolina, where the Catamounts grabbed 45 percent of their misses, leading to 16 second chance points. The Gophers scored 84 points in the contest to overcome those opportunities, but when the scoring becomes more difficult during conference play, those will hurt much more.
The problems aren’t completely obvious, because it’s not like the Gophers are tremendously small, even in the frontcourt. Joey King isn’t sizeable by any means, but Mo Walker and Elliott Eliason are hulks, and Bakary Konate has seen decent court time. Still, second chance points are the things that lead to a death by a thousand cuts when the conference season starts.
INTERESTING – Deandre Mathieu is doing some special things
Even when he doesn’t have the ball, my eyes often are drawn to Mathieu when he’s on the court, just because he’s so electric. His ability to slip by people and get a read on things a split second before everyone else is uncanny. He’s not always scoring, but it’s what he’s doing away from the hoop where he’s bringing value to the team and asserting himself as the unquestioned MVP.
In the Big Ten alone, consider that he leads the conference in steals and assist/turnover ratio, and is second in assists per game. So, not only is he taking the ball away from everyone else more often, but he’s also giving it up far less. He’s also making his teammates that much better.
But it doesn’t stop there. Nationally, he’s ranked 11th in both assists and steals per game, and ranks fourth in assist/turnover ratio at 3.91.
To really shine a light on how special he is, consider even further that only two other players in the nation, Northwestern State’s Jalan West and Providence’s Kris Dunn, rank in the top 11 in assists and steals per game, and neither of those two can crack the 3.0 assist/turnover ratio. Basically, Mathieu stands alone in the nation in terms of taking care of the ball, taking it away and dishing it out. And it’s incredible that no one outside Dinkytown seems to be taking notice.
He’s off last season’s scoring output by a few points, but he also has several additional scoring weapons to shoulder the load and, frankly, he’s better off getting guys like Walker, Hollins and Morris the ball anyhow and only scoring when it’s convenient. With the conference season starting, hopefully he starts getting the recognition he’s due.