Yuri Collins swears he’s not counting assists. Well, at least not usually. But when 20 assists in a single game is achievable, you have to at least try, right?
“I didn’t really start hunting [assists] until I got to 17,” Collins says with a laugh. “Then, I was like, ‘I might as well get three more.’”
Collins is college basketball’s assist king, and the distance between his throne and the rest of the sport keeps getting bigger and bigger. After leading the country in assists per game at 7.9 a season ago, the Saint Louis floor general has upped that number to 11.9 per contest through nine games in 2022–23. No other player is averaging more than 8.2. Collins has had five games this season with 13 or more assists, including 20 against Tennessee State and 14 against Southern Illinois in the last week. And he’s done all this while decreasing his turnovers from a season ago from 4.1 to 3.1 per game.
