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Elijah Hawkins fills up stat sheet in Gophers’ 65-62 win over Maryland

andy greder, pioneer press
·4 min read

Elijah Hawkins has been busting out a fitting celebration this season.

After nifty assists — of which there’s a multiplying amount — the Gophers point guard will cup his hands around his eyes as if he’s wearing X-ray vision goggles.

Hawkins leadership, passing and deep 3-pointers helped Minnesota to a 65-62 win over Maryland in a Sunday matinee at Williams Arena. The Gophers (12-3 overall) have now won seven-straight games, snapped a 10-game losing skid to Maryland since 2017 and improved 3-1 in Big Ten play for the first time since the 2016-17 season.

“I look fast, put the goggles on,” Hawkins joked postgame. He said did the same gesture before transferring from Howard, “but it just wasn’t as public.”

Hawkins has been coming into wider focus in Big Ten play. Coming into Sunday, he was second in the nation at 7.7 assist per game, and finished the Terrapins win with 10 points and nine assists.

Hawkins also got the best in his matchup with Terrapins point guard Young; they both attended Dematha Catholic High School outside of Washington, D.C. Young, who was averaging 25.4 points in the last five games, still got to 20 points but shot 5-of-17 from the field.

Maryland (9-6, 1-3 Big Ten) stayed in the game with last-minute 3-pointers from Donta Scott and Young. But Dawson Garcia iced the game with four made free throws in the final 15 seconds.

The Gophers had hit only two of 18 3-pointers into the second half before hitting three consecutive treys — Braeden Carrington, Cam Christie and Hawkins from the Cambira logo — to tie Maryland at 40-40 with 11 minutes left.

Hawkins then drilled another from as deep to beat the shot clock and take a 47-45 lead with 8:15 left.

In the first half, the Gophers got one point from their leading scorer (Garcia) and zero from top shooter Mike Mitchell Jr. They shot horribly from 3-point range (1 of 14), but were only down 29-22 at the break due to Maryland’s 15 turnovers.

Coming off a road win at Michigan on Thursday and being favored by 1.5 points Sunday, Johnson said it was “the first time we’ve really had game pressure, if we are being transparent. I thought the first half, they felt that a little bit.”

Johnson meant that there was a newfound expectation for his team to perform at home. “It’s another experience we can notch on our belt,” he said.

Minnesota had gone more than six minutes without a basket, including an alley-oop thrown too high fro Hawkins to Josh Ola-Joseph. That pair has connected on many lobs this season, so that missed connection showed how off the team was in the opening 20 minutes.

Garcia and center Pharrel Payne also each picked up two fouls in the first half and spend more time on the bench early.

Maryland went on a 14-0 run and staked its largest lead at 23-12. But Carrington made the U’s only trey of the first half and it was part of an 8-0 run to cut the Terrapins lead to 23-20.

Hawkins had four steals in the opening four-plus minutes to help Minnesota take a 10-7 edge. He finished with six steals, one of his career high.

Hawkins received a moment pregame, too, honored for breaking the school’s single game assist record (17) in a nonconference game against Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis on Dec. 12.

Hawkins’ assist production is now at 10.5 per game across the previous seven contests, but he also did it scoring, with those two deep treys vital in the second half.

“He just rises up to the moment; that’s the one thing about that kid.” Johnson said. “He just finds the moment, he lives for the moment and it just goes back to some people are just built a little different. They are just winners by nature. They just figure it out and he’s just that guy that finds ways to be successful.”

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