BASKETBALL PREVIEW: Wolf Pack’s quiet guy bangs the boards
Nevada sophomore forward Malik Cooke is so soft-spoken he makes Michael Jackson sound like Don King.
As a freshman, Cooke was a role player. He came off the bench for a team that had four seniors and little need for a quiet, lanky guy. But this was a familiar situation for Cooke.
“As a sophomore (Cooke’s first year at Christ School), he was just another role player because we had five seniors starting,” Christ School head coach David Gaines said. “He was skinny, just 15 years old, so he was getting pushed around. But it gave him an ‘I’m not going to back down’ attitude.”
Cooke took that attitude and became the all-time leading scorer of Christ School in Arden, N.C.
Now, in his second season at Nevada, Cooke will look to make a jump similar to the one he made at Christ. Nevada head coach Mark Fox said he’s already gotten off to a good start.
“(This offseason) he probably improved the most on our team,” Fox said. “Malik, like most freshmen, was just drowning in the transition a year ago this time. He just was overwhelmed with the complexity of the game. Now, he’s able to act, not just simply react and you don’t see him paralyzed in thought.”
Cooke agreed that he’s progressed a lot since he first stepped on campus.
“I think I came along good,” he said. “I just tried to work on everything in the offseason and just tried to get better.”
Cooke will start at small forward for the Wolf Pack. It being his second year with the team, don’t expect his soft-spoken demeanor to persist.
“When he came in as a sophomore (in high school), he was very tentative,” Gaines said. “As a junior and senior, he was a real focal leader. He didn’t talk much, so when he talked the guys listened.”
On a team that lacks a true big man, the athletic 6-foot-6 Cooke will be key to the Wolf Pack’s rebounding.
“We had a great rebounder two years ago named Jermaine Washington,” Fox said. “(When recruiting) we felt Malik had the same rebounding instincts that Jermaine had.”
Gaines had an explanation for Fox’s thoughts.
“When (Fox) talks about his good rebounding skills, it’s because of Malik’s long arms,” Gaines said. “His wingspan is so large, a guy can have him boxed out, and out of nowhere, Malik can get a rebound.”
Cooke has a seven-foot wingspan and a nose for the ball, but don’t look for him to be the one bragging about his natural feel for the game.
“I don’t know where my instincts have come from,” he said. “I guess just from playing so many years and listening to my coaches over the years.”
Gaines was one of the many coaches Cooke listened to, on the court and on making a college choice.
While trying to recruit Cooke, Fox paid a visit to Cooke’s home in Charlotte, N.C. Gaines said Cooke’s choice to attend Nevada was made easier by the school he had previously attended.
“Here was the benefit: Malik’s from Charlotte, but he’d already lived away from home for three years (because Christ was a boarding school),” Gaines said. “So the aspect of moving across the country to play was not that big of a deal to him.
“After he visited (Nevada), I talked to him and he said, ‘Coach, I had a great time. There’s a real family atmosphere there. I’m ready to commit.’”
Fox said it was a stretch for Nevada to even travel across the country to recruit a player.
“We don’t recruit a lot of guys here,” he said. “We’re probably as picky of evaluators as you can get and we felt like (Cooke) was somebody who could win for us. We recruited him (hard) even though he was from all the way across the country.”
Now, Cooke has emerged into the starting lineup for a team expected to make a run at the National Collegiate Athletic Association tournament.
As past history indicates, he may become more of a vocal leader as the season progresses, but for right now Cooke’s just fine being the quiet, confident guy.
“I just want to play hard and do whatever my team needs me to do,” he said.
Juan López can be reached at jlopez@nevadasagebrush.com.
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