Which sub cracks the crunchtime rotation first?

[Galway Eagle]

By the end of this thread he will be saying he's " good but not all conference level" 

OT but till Kam last year who was the best player (in a season) to not get any accolades?

[MuMark]

Torviks prpg( points above replacement player) has Ben as the 30th best player in the Big East so far this season.........3 of the players above him play for Marquette......

The bigs above him are 6th year player Eric Dixon.......5th year player Kalkbrenner.....5th year player Fremantle.......Reed Jr of Conn......Sorber of Georgetown and 5th year player Mccaffrey of Butler.

So......he is not one of the best bigs in the big east.......he is not a bad player......he is a decent starter on one of the best teams in the league.

So could you quit exaggerating about how terrible he is now? Nobody said he was a stud......he has improved every year and I'd expect that to continue.

https://barttorvik.com/playerstat.php?link=y&cvalue=BE&year=2025&start=20241101&end=20250501

[Carl]

I saw the title of this thread and fully expected it to be about sandwiches

[Newsdreams]

I saw the title of this thread and fully expected it to be about sandwiches

Fck Cousins

[muwarrior69]

I mean I wouldn't call it the TAMU eyetest. But generally yeah eyetest is a lot more valuable on defense than it is on offense. There are some great stats that tell you specific things about a player's defensive ability. If you are going to use a stat to try to quantify a player's overall defensive impact over the course of a season, best IMHO is looking at defensive efficiency on/off stats. Ben is currently second on the team.

Shaka  was subbing Ben because Butler went small for the majority of the last ten minutes. You seem to have an idea that being good/bad at defense boils down to how does a player handle being isolated on the perimeter against a smaller and faster defender. Almost all centers are going to struggle in that situation, Ben does better than most.

I think the refs need an eyetest.

[jfp61]

Royce for either Ben or Joplin. Otherwise no one.

[The Sultan]

Royce for either Ben or Joplin. Otherwise no one.

Intentionally?

[jfp61]

Intentionally?

not yet maybe at the end of the year.

[The Sultan]

not yet maybe at the end of the year.

Yeah that's not happening.

[tower912]

Except, it is already settled.  The answer is Zaide.

[jfp61]

Except, it is already settled.  The answer is Zaide.

kinda, expect he gets pulled every offensive possession because he is just used as a foul shield

[MuMark]

Sean if he is healthy and effective.........he did it last year at times.

Ps I wonder how much longer without playing until Sean might just decides I'd rather have another full season? Assuming he wants to stay in school for a 5th year which isn't always a given.

[tower912]

That has always been the question.  And Shaka has been pretty clear it is about when Sean feels ready.

[Elonsmusk]

He's a below average big, it's ok to admit that. His defense is worse than his offense, but neither is great.

It's fine, we're not going to have an All-American at every position. He's what we have, he does some things well, and it's also fine to admit that the C is the weakest spot on our team and that with a better C we would probably be a national title favorite.

It's also reasonable to think that our ceiling is higher with our Frosh taking big in-season leaps than it is with Ben playing at the level he's shown over the past 3 years.

A few comments on your views on Gold:

1) His defense is very improved, and will be better than Parham all year long - and I'm a big Royce fan.  Yet Royce isn't likely to perform any better than Ben offensively by the end of the year.

2) While Ben may not be able to defend a 6' midget guard with great quickness, 99% of of 6'11" guys cannot, maybe Oso was the 1% that could.

3) Ben's ability to shoot from 3, has made this team more efficient offensively than last year's team.  Kam's ability to get into the lane and be super efficient is only made possible by Ben being on the floor.  If Oso were our starting 5, Kam's efficiency likely isn't as good.

If someone said before the season that this year's team minus Tyler Kolek would be more efficient offensively, and our defense minus Oso to be as good as last year's team - I suspect most Scoopers would have said unlikely to impossible.

Ben is at least a solid "B" player, with potential to get to AB.  He's well above mediocre.