From the moment he arrived on campus, Minnesota point guard DeAndre Mathieu has been a critical part of this team.

His value is only growing.

Things have changed for the Knoxville native this year. The Gophers have plenty of scorers, now. He'll be guarded differently, especially as Minnesota enters the Big Ten season. Mathieu will continue to be tested.

But early on, the senior has shown, he can still be that dynamic offensive force, even as he becomes a better point guard.

After last night's stellar performance, Mathieu ranks second in the Big Ten in assists and 28th nationally in assist rate per kenpom.com.

Both sides of Mathieu's offensive game – passing and scoring – seem to boost the Gophers as a whole and make the system run smoothly.

Mathieu got off to a bit of a slow scoring start this season, averaging 7.2 points a game in his first five.

Asked recently whether he was focusing more on distributing rather than attacking the basket, Mathieu hesitated.

"I don't know," he said slowly. "It's still early. So we'll see, we'll see. I know I am passing the ball a lot more."

Apparently assistant coach Kimani Young has been telling Mathieu he needs to continue to look for his shot, even as he's working on other facets of his game.

"I'm like, 'Coach, Dre [Hollins is scoring], Los [Morris] is scoring, everybody is scoring, why do I need to?'"

Young responded: "You'll see when we get into more and more big games."

Mathieu appears to have renewed that focus. He has scored in double digits in three of Minnesota's last four games. Still, that isn't at all the most encouraging aspect of his development.

In the last three games, Mathieu has compiled 24 assists while turning over the ball four times -- good for a 6-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio in that frame. That effort was shining in full effect in Monday's 92-56 win over North Dakota, a game in which the floor general had a new career-high ten assists without a single turnover.

To coach Richard Pitino, these are the nights that show big growth. The effect was a team that demonstrated excellent ball movement and boasted a 2.1-to-1 assist to turnover ratio overall.

"DeAndre had a good year last year, but I don't know if DeAndre was a great point guard in the sense of a high number of assists," the coach said. "His assist to turnover ratio is ridiculous … it is phenomenal. I don't know if he could have had a game last year where he had ten assists, zero turnovers."