Max in the new year

[Dr. Cornelius]

After the win at Omaha Max is back in 2nd in the scoring race

[Keenan Henderson]

He is  a question about Max for this year: has he improved between his sophmore and junior year?  

[Old Titan]

1 hour ago, Keenan Henderson said:

He is  a question about Max for this year: has he improved between his sophmore and junior year?  

Not really a fair question is it, considering factors beyond his control have changed from last year.

He's being guarded completely different this year.  Last season, defenses were slow to believe he would take - let alone make - shots from 5-10 feet behind the arc, and defended him conventionally.

Now, he's getting man-handled at halfcourt (most times sooner) and he rarely gets wide-open looks.  He's had to change his approach to making space and getting his shot off.

Plus, he doesn't have the benefit of Kevin Obanor keeping defenses honest with his 40% 3-point shooting on the pick-and-pop.  This season, Max is often getting double-teamed off those screens and forced way off the line.

His stats have dropped slightly, but he's still a major offensive force from a statistical and bottom-line perspective.  

So, yeah - he's "improved", because he's repeating an incredibly high level of performance in a much more hostile environment.

[Keenan Henderson]

It seems as through Max has also improved on the defense end.  He is stronger and plays tougher when bigger guards post him up.  That extra weight he put on in the offseason seems to have helped him on the defense end.  His overall game is better than last year's version.  Keep it up Max!

[ORUTerry]

 

[Old Titan]

 

[Old Titan]

Ya know, it's gonna go completely unnoticed by everyone but a few of us college basketball geeks, but Max was in fact named the Lute Olson NATIONAL Player Of The Week by CollegeInsider.com for ALL D1 schools, not to be confused with their Lou Henson Mid-Major Player Of The Week award (which this week went to a kid from Bryant University).  I think Max won that mid-major version a time or two last season, before being named the Lou Henson Mid-Major Player Of The YEAR at the end of the season.

Congrats, Max - you're a star at ANY level! 

 

[Old Titan]

Also, in the same tweet announcing Max's recognition, the Summit League chose to lead with this little factoid:

"Abmas is the first #SummitMBB to earn a National Player of the Week award since South Dakota State's Mike Daum in 2018-19 (Feb. 26)."

Which, aside from being typically Dakota-centric, is wrong:  Max was named by the same website (CollegeInsider.com) the "Lou Henson Mid-Major NATIONAL Player Of The Week" for February 15, 2021, after he torched SDSU for 72 points on back-to-back nights in the Mabee Center.

This, of course, just a couple of weeks before they named Max their 2020-21 Lou Henson Mid-Major National Player of the YEAR.

But, hey - enough about Max.  Let's talk about Mike-freaking-Daum...  #smh

 

 

[ORUTerry]

Typical

[Old Titan]

 

[Old Titan]

This one cracks me up:  according to Google's Italian-to-English translation, Max was named "MVP" by this Italian "college basketball madness" website for his performance last week.

"Bravissimo, Max - bella, bella!!"

 

 

[ORUTerry]

 

[Keenan Henderson]

Youtube now has quite a few highlight videos of Max.  Just type in his name and you will find highlight videos of past games: Tulsa, Omaha, Denver, South Dakota, etc.

[Old Titan]

The Max Abmas interview in this podcast starts at the 18:20 mark.  Sean Paul has been a big fan of Max's since before the Summit League tournament last year.

 

 

[Old Titan]

[ORUTerry]

 

[Old Titan]

Max ssems to have really blown up witb the media and critics this past week after his performances in Omaha and Denver.

And here's what's scary, in a good way:  among the many interesting nuggets from Coach Mills' interview on 1170 The Blitz, he said something along the lines of he doesn't feel like Max has had a great game yet this season by his own standards; and that him scoring 28 or so is kind of just what you come to expect as a "good" game for him, but not "great".

Now THAT'S when you know you're good:  when your personally-average game is better than 95% of other guys' career games!

[Keenan Henderson]

It was about this time last year that Max went from good to great.  Do not have his exact numbers but he had over 40 versus WIU and SDSU and then 36 versus South Dakota in February 2021.  Then of course around 27 per night in the NCAA tournament.  Hoping for a repeat in 2022!