In several games earlier this season, Gophers men's basketball coach Ben Johnson begged Elijah Hawkins to slow down and improve his decisionmaking. But he never wanted to take away what his point guard did best.
Hawkins' speed and facilitating in an up-tempo offense helped Howard reach the NCAA tournament last season — and now he's becoming arguably the Big Ten's best passer.
Playing against overmatched IUPUI on Tuesday, the Gophers saw Hawkins set the program record with 17 assists, with only one turnover, putting on a show in a 101-65 win in front of an announced crowd of 6,581 at Williams Arena.
"You don't want a guy searching for assists and I didn't think he did," Johnson said. "I thought he got us off on the right start. I thought his push was really good. He made the simple reads, the simple plays, set guys up terrific."
The maestro of the U's symphony of crowd-pleasing plays, Hawkins broke the team's single-game assists record of 16 by Arriel McDonald vs. Wisconsin in 1994 with a thread-the-needle pass to walk-on Erick Reader for a 99-59 lead with 2 minutes, 34 seconds to play.
Hawkins' 17 assists tied for the third most in Big Ten history with Michigan State's Gary Ganakas in 1972. It was the most assists for a Big Ten player since Spartan great Mateen Cleaves' league-record 20 assists in 2000.
It was also the third consecutive game with at least 11 assists for Hawkins, which had never happened in Minnesota history. He reached that total in the first half with no turnovers.
"My teammates told me there was one more [assist] to break the record," Hawkins said. "It took me about three, four minutes, but I finally got it done."
