Hamilton, Cleaves showing what they got for Christmas

Sporting News, The, Feb 1, 1999 by Mike DeCourcy

The Richard Hamilton who competed against Washington in the Great Eight nearly two months ago might as well have been painted onto the court by LeRoy Neiman.

Hamilton was a stationary, solitary figure, rarely involved in the flow of the Connecticut offense, let alone serving as its focus.

The next night, on the same United Center floor, Michigan State point guard Mateen Cleaves heaved jumpers and one-handers that clunked off the rim and dragged Michigan State from a game it might have won over Duke. He committed only two turnovers against the Blue Devils. He made up for it with 14 missed shots. "I'm not playing Mateen Cleaves basketball," he said that night.

There was a very good reason for that.

He was not Mateen Cleaves.

The Cleaves who dominated the Big Ten as a sophomore disappeared upon injuring his ankle in the final exhibition game for the United States team that played in the World Championships. He lost a month's worth of practice and conditioning to that injury, and still more time when he separated his shoulder in a freak accident in September.

The pursuit of a spot on that same U.S. team turned Hamilton into the statue who had more 11-point games (two) than 30-point games (one) in the first third of his junior season. Hamilton broke his foot during World team tryouts and was ordered not to work out while it healed.

These two were supposed to be locks for the 1999 All-American team, but neither could find the key to his game.

The trap that catches nearly all of those who follow sports is assuming if a player who is injured gets back out there, he's more than just out there. It's not always the case.

"Why would you practice all the hours you do, why would you do all the conditioning you do if there's no worth to it?" Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun says. "For the first month of the season, Rip was not in position to be the player he was."

The clearest distinction this season for Cleaves and Hamilton comes between those games played before Christmas and those after, and there is a reason. During the holiday break, players are removed from the pressures of classwork and final exams. Teams also are unbound from the 20-hour rule that limits the time that can be spent in practice and conditioning.

Cleaves played a dozen games before Christmas and averaged 11.6 points, 6.8 assists and 4.4 turnovers. In his next seven games, all but one in the brutal Big Ten, he averaged 11.4 points, 6.9 assists and 3.0 turnovers. He shot 36.2 percent from the field with only six more assists than turnovers against high-major opponents before Christmas. He has lifted that to 40.0 percent shooting and an assist/turnover ratio of better than 2-1 since.

In the nine games before the holiday break, Hamilton shot 42.6 from the field, shot 15.1 times per game and averaged 19 points. In his next seven games, he shot 49.1 from the field, took 16.6 shots a game and averaged 25.1 points.

"Early in the season, he was somewhat less than the Richard Hamilton we had last year," Calhoun says. "The past few weeks, he has been more than the Richard Hamilton we had last year."

Hamilton scored a combined 57 points in his first two games, against Quinnipiac and Richmond, but declined as the competition improved. He had 17 on 7-of-21 shooting in the Washington game, 15 on 4-of-15 shooting as the Huskies nearly lost at Pittsburgh.

The odd thing is Hamilton did not feel physically limited as much as mentally. "I can run," he says. "I don't have to play at all and I still can mn. But it was a matter of getting my feel back. I'd get the ball, and I wouldn't be ready to shoot. My feet wouldn't be together. I wouldn't be ready to make a move. I'd throw a pump-fake when I didn't need to throw a pump-fake.

"When I played earlier and I was scoring all those points, I didn't feel right. I was just playing off talent. I thought to myself, `How can I do this, and I haven't even played in two months?' I knew somebody was going to challenge me, and there'd be a time when I played and I wasn't there. My mental game wasn't there."

For Cleaves, the problems were more physical. He would attempt the sort of move that worked so well last year, a jabstep from the wing that would ordinarily propel a drive into the lane, but he'd lost a smidgen of his quickness. Instead of being left behind, the defender would stay in front of Cleaves and force an off-balance, heavily guarded shot.

He also lost time that could have been spent working on his jump shot, always Cleaves' principal weakness. He hit 40.0 percent last year, 33.6 from 3-point range as a sophomore, and promised he'd improve. Not being able to shoot with a push off his foot cost him the rhythm that made his quick jumpers off the dribble a Weapon last season.

What little work he could do, Cleaves did, which is why he's up from 70.3 free-throw shooting to 76.3.

"Knowing how high you're ranked, how people are going to be aiming at you, it was hard to get ready mentally because I knew I didn't put in the work to play some of those games," Cleaves says. "It was killing me, because I knew I couldn't do some of the things I normally would.