(Photo Credit: Malik Dia/Instagram)
Chris Beard declared that it might be time to talk about Ole Miss after its 74-64 win over No. 4 Alabama. Perhaps it’s time to talk about Malik Dia, too.
Dia had his best college game to date in his 23-point, 19-rebound performance that helped to propel Ole Miss to a Tuesday road win over No. 4 Alabama. That was the third consecutive 15-plus point performance that Dia recorded after failing to hit that mark in any of the season’s first 14 games.
Even through those 14 games, the 6-foot-9, 250-pound big man believed that his guard-like skillset would translate to the SEC after playing sparingly at Vanderbilt in his freshman season and averaging 16.9 points per game in his sophomore season at Belmont.
“I am who I am,” Dia told Southeastern 16.“Regardless of if people like my game or not, I’m confident in what I do. I feel like I’m one of the better players out here in college basketball and that’s not in a cocky way at all, it’s just [that] I’m gonna impose my will in however way possible and just help the team.”
Dia has been looking to do that at the SEC level since his freshman year at Vanderbilt in which then head coach Jerry Stackhouse called the then-freshman his “most talented” player, but indicated that there’d have to be some significant development for him to take advantage of his ability. Belmont coach Casey Alexander also saw the raw ability when Dia committed to be a Bruin, but experienced the growing pains with Dia.
“Super talented, can make a lot of plays that a lot of people love,” Alexander said after Belmont’s 2023-24 season opener in which Dia went for 24 points. “What he has to do is eliminate the bad plays that you don’t see as much; not getting back in transition defensively, being slow to help defensively, not getting a play right, not getting matched up right.”
It appears that some experience as well as Dia’s relationship with Beard has been effective in tuning out those mistakes.
Beard hasn’t made his positive intentions with Dia shy, but it’s often been a case of tough love as he’s attempted to develop Dia into a consistent factor.
“It’s not even close,” Dia said when asked if Beard coaches him harder than Stackhouse and Alexander did. “With coach Beard it’s just a different level…He’s on me every day regardless of these past two or three games, it’s like we just lost the last three. He never lets me get too high or never lets me get too low. He’s always consistently on me and he pays such close attention to detail.”
Beard hasn’t changed his coaching style towards his junior big man, but he’s taken notice of what Dia has started to do and how he’s affected his team. The veteran head coach has been impressed by the scoring numbers his big man has put up, but has always wanted to see it happen consecutively.
He’s finally seeing it.
“Dia and I share a common goal in his future and it’s consistency,” Beard said after Dia’s 19-point outing against LSU on Saturday. “Just proud of Dia.”
The key to that consistency in Dia’s mind is simplification.
Ole Miss’ junior big man is as capable as any big man in the country of putting the ball on the floor and getting his own shot. He’s capable of getting 30 points with a few fadeaway jumpers and dunks, too. That paired with a body that’s gotten “stronger and more athletic” has made a tangible difference.
“I’m trying not to do too much,” Dia told Southeastern 16. “I just feel like the game simplified for me and I’m just finding different ways to be effective. Whether that’s being inside all one game or outside and you know showing my skillset. Regardless, I can just get it in different ways.”
Dia has demonstrated throughout his career that within his game lies the ability to create his own shot and handle it in a way that appears to be alien-like for someone his size. When the Ole Miss forward gets to his spots he also demonstrates a jarring ability to creatively finish around the bucket and to knock down shots from the perimeter with his slow–but effective– release. Those characteristics guided Dia to the first game in which an Ole Miss player went for over 20 points and over 15 rebounds against a team ranked in the AP Top 25 since 1997.
The jarring evidence of his improvement lies in those stats while the evidence of his newfound composure is his .5 turnovers per game, which is a significant change from his 2.7 per outing last year in the Missouri Valley Conference.
“I think I’ve just let the game come to me,” Dia said. “I’d say in the beginning of the year I was kind of trying to force the issue, make myself be relevant in a way. Now I’m just letting the game come to me. I’m trusting the game, trusting my teammates, trusting the work.”
It’s only been a three-game sample size for Ole Miss’ captivating big man, but it’s about more than the numbers within the stretch. It’s more about the maturation that’s so clearly shown up within Dia’s game. It appears as if after two and a half seasons he’s finally set to tap into his ceiling as an SEC player.
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