Howland's first years...

[Bothrops]

Malik will be damn good this year. Just wait! I take nothing negative from his few minutes tonight.

[Prediction? Pain.]

He aint no miracle worker folks...He has to deal with what he inherited.(which is true of ANY DAMN COACH)

UCLA 11-17 overall 7-11 conference
Pittsburgh 13-15 overall 5-11 conference
No. Arizona 8-18 overall 4-10 conference

Just said the exact same thing over at FWTCT on our post-game wrap. I haven't looked into just how bad UCLA, Pitt, and Northern AZ were the year before Howland arrived, but we were in pretty rough shape. We finished last year 13th in the SEC in scoring, last in assists per game, last in turnovers per game, 12th in offensive rebounds per game, and 13th in three-point percentage. (And the year before last, we were also bottom three in scoring offense, turnovers per game, three-point percentage, and offensive rebounding.) Not unreasonable to think that the turnaround will take at least a little time.

[Johnson85]

Reasoning?

Thirty is a hell of a lot of points in a college game and he's not going to be a one game show. I wouldn't put money against it happening, but it's not a lock. And that's not an indication of Malik not living up to the hype, I just don't know that he's ever going to shoot that type of volume on this team. If they continue to call 70 fouls a game, then he probably will score 30 a few times loading up on FTs, but otherwise, I could see his high game topping out in the 20's.

[chef dixon]

Coach is making him his new Hunter Renfroe. He will now root for him to not score 30 all year to be correct.

Malik is going to need some games to adjust. He's never played on a team where he can't just walk up to the top of the key and jack up a 3 every possession. He's extremely fast and will get to the free throw line A LOT this season when he drives to the basket. He can also get on fire with the 3. I wouldn't put it past him to get to 30 a couple times this year just based on those 2 things.