I like Brandon Knight. He’s well-spoken, cordial, fun-to-watch and patient with sports-blogger types like me. He’s also a darn-good ball player with a great basketball IQ and a smooth shot. But probably the thing I like most about Knight is that he doesn’t get riled up in the face of adversity. He’s cool – he’s like blue ice.
We’ve seen what has happened to teams in the past that got down double-digit-deficits: they panicked and got into a hole they couldn’t dig themselves out of. In the first half against Penn, Knight was 4 of 8 from the field (1 of 4 from 3-point range). In fact, the whole team shot a miserable 41% in the first half. Most freshman point guards would have panicked and started turning the ball over after that – especially since Penn was pretty tough defensively.
But Brandon Knight is not most freshman point guards. Brandon chose to have a better second half – and he didn’t miss a shot after that. That’s right, the same guy who shot 4 of 8 in the first half shot 4 of 4 in the second, including 3 of 3 from 3-point land. He also made both of his free throws and had an assist-to-turnover ratio of 4-to-0. When was the last time Knight had zero turnovers? Not this year. In fact he’s only limited himself to less than 2 turnovers once this year (1 vs. Indiana).
And he played stellar defense. Knight guarded Penn’s 3rd best scorer in the first half (averages 11.5 ppg) – and limited him to 6 points. In the second half, Knight guarded Penn’s best scorer (averages 16.7 ppg) and limited him to 4 points. That’s almost Liggins-worthy.
Brandon Knight: school is in session.
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