UMass Lowell Basketball: In-depth look at junior Point Guard Ayinde Hakim

Why You Should Know Him?

I have done these articles every year to varying degrees, and they are always something I like to do given that every one of these players highlighted in these articles is an unknown player who is going to be a factor for his team and likely going to be a factor in the conference race and should find themselves on some all-conference lists. Hakim is one of those players who is going to be the talk of the Lowell basketball program this year and will find himself as the leader of this offense and is hoping he can guide the River Hawks to their first winning season ever.

The junior guard enters his second full season at Lowell after spending the first year and a half of his career at La Salle. It doesn’t happen often, but Hakim decided to transfer down to Lowell, and it has paid off tremendously as he has taken his game to the next level and is going to see a huge uptick in minutes this year. Given how his role in the offense is expected to change, it will not be surprising to see Hakim dominate this year for Lowell when he is on the floor.

Hakim should step right in and run the point this year, even with less than 25 minutes per game last year, a season which saw him start about half the games he was the team leader in assists with almost four per game. The guard is an efficient scorer in the paint and is an 80% free throw shooter. He doesn’t shoot the ball well from deep but the way he plays he doesn’t need to be a good shooter from deep to be successful.

He is also a great defender on the defensive end of the floor, as he averaged over 1 steal per game and can go head-to-head with the opponent’s point guard. All in all, the guard shot 45% from the floor and averaged 11 points per game, which was second overall for the River Hawks.

Hakim is a natural-born leader and when he plays he brings about a calming presence to him which will allow his teammates to be confident and play at the pace they are used to as well as take the correct shots. Hakim was a member of the student government and was part of the Alpha Leadership Program in High School. Those are all things that have given him the leadership prowess to lead a team.

He does turn the ball over a lot but last year was his first full-time season as a point guard. As he learns the offense and gets more familiar with it the turnover number will hopefully come down a lot. Either way, Hakim is a great candidate to take a giant step forward this season.