The improvement made by Georgia State’s Malik Benlevi from his freshman season to this season is like having a new player, men’s basketball coach Ron Hunter said.
Not only has Benlevi become the team’s best player on defense — Hunter has so much confidence in him that he makes the calls — but his offense is slowly starting to develop from a confidence built from shooting thousands of jumpers over the summer.
“Everything that you can do right from your freshman year to your sophomore year, he’s hit every button,” Hunter said.
Benlevi, a 6-foot-5 guard, is averaging seven points per game ahead of Wednesday’s non-conference matchup against Massachusetts at the GSU Sports Arena. While his scoring average isn’t great, he has scored at least eight points in five of the past seven games, including a career-high 17 against Alabama A&M.
“Biggest difference is the way I’ve impacted the game on different levels whether it’s rebounding, defending and scoring,” he said. “Last year, I was pretty much only a defender.”
Part of that was by choice.
Though he played at a high school that valued defense, Benlevi had that high school/AAU basketball approach of get-the-ball, shoot-the-ball during the non-conference season. So, he took a few shots. Some were good. Some weren’t.
As he watched more shots missed than made, Benlevi said his confidence was negatively affected on offense. He became a different, less aggressive player during Sun Belt play. Instead of shooting, he became a pass-first player. He missed all 15 of the 3-pointers when he did shoot. His average of 9.4 minutes per game in non-conference play decreased to 7.7 in conference play.
“Felt like I wasted a half a year,” he said. “I could have done better.”
Hunter and Benlevi had a talk. Hunter said that Benlevi could do nine things well on offense, but he needed to come up with one thing that he could do great.
Benlevi dedicated himself to improving his jump shot. He and Isaiah Williams would shoot every day during the summer: 3-pointers, pull-up jumpers, step-back jumpers, floaters, finishing at the rim. The offensive catalog was exhausted.
When practice started, Benlevi was ready.
“I felt more confident with the ball in my hands,” he said. “I could make things happen.”
His scoring average has increased from 1.8 points last year to 7. His accuracy has increased from 30.2 percent to 50 for all field goals, and 16 to 33.3 on 3-pointers. He’s already made more 3s this season (5) than he did all of last year (4).
“He’s become part of the offense now,” Hunter said. “We run a lot of things through Malik.”
Benlevi’s ability to defend has remained the same. He said his high school, Jenkins in Savannah, ran similar schemes as Hunter’s zones, so Benlevi understood the slides within the zones. His learning curve wasn’t as steep. Hunter said Benlevi understands concepts and how to work within them.
With Benlevi running the defense, Georgia State is allowing averages of 66.8 points and 39.4 shooing per game. The Panthers were particularly impressive in their most recent victory over Middle Tennessee in holding the Blue Raiders to 56 points and a shooting percentage of 35.3.
It will take a similar defensive effort to defeat the Minutemen (9-3), which are averaging 74.1 points on 44-percent shooting per game.
Benlevi will be the key, according to Hunter.
“When Malik plays well, we rarely lose,” Hunter said. “A lot of things he does wont show up on a stat sheet. He won’t carry us offensively. He carries us defensively. When it all comes together he’s going to be really special.”
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