To Justin Cobbs, the bulk of it comes down to one word: tempo.
It might seem like just a small piece of the basketball puzzle, but to Cobbs — and other former Gophers basketball players he's chatted with — the word indicates such a huge difference in a game and in a player's success.
And the change in pace — from Minnesota to California, where he transferred after his freshman season in 2009-10 — is one of the major elements Cobbs credits for his success this season and his ability to adjust and improve so quickly with a new team.
"At Minnesota, it was a little different. I don't think any of the coaches had it in their mind that they were going to let me play the way I did in high school, which was being an aggressive scorer," said Cobbs, a guard who is averaging 13 points a game for the Golden Bears. "It makes the game fun again, being able to play the way you used to play and winning."
It's the game Cobbs, who is one of four players averaging double digits on a team that is 23-7 and projected to get in the NCAA tournament, always thought he would be playing at Minnesota.
Cobbs sat down and talked with coach Tubby Smith before committing, the guard said, to discuss style of offense.
"We talked about offense and different things, changing the offense a little bit to run a little bit and fit my game," he said. "He agreed with me and said he'd try some things. But it didn't end up … and I ended up transferring."
Cobbs, who dispels the notion that he and Smith didn't get along, said the coach's high-low offense — which he believed was essentially created around the team's group of talented big men — didn't play to his strengths, and he didn't have much of a role.
He averaged just 2.1 points that season but perhaps showed a spark of what makes him the kind of player who would look very good in a Minnesota uniform now. As a redshirt sophomore, the 6-2, 195-pound Cobbs is leading the Pacific-12 in assist-to-turnover ratio at 2.5-to-1 and has been the sturdy and natural point guard the Gophers lack.
