Recruiting Report: Benji Lundberg (2018)
They don’t hand out a “sixth man of the year” award in Minnesota but if they were to do so, Benji Lundberg could’ve made a strong case to win it at the Class AA level a year ago.
Lundberg, a point guard from New Richland-Hartland-Ellendale-Geneva averaged 12 points per game off the bench for the 5th-place finishing Panthers last season.
Lundberg stepped it up in a big way for Minnesota Nice this spring, averaging close to 20 points and six assists before injuring his finger playing in a tournament with his high school team. So for Lundberg, the AAU season is over. In what is now an abbreviated season, things went awfully well.
“Our last AAU tournament we won the championship so I guess It was a good one to end on for me,” said Lundberg. “The season went really well though. We had a bunch new guys that have played and helped us a lot. Guys from Mankato East like Eddie [Oyet], [Kaden] Koski from Byron and a lot of other guys have just played really well all spring.”
Lundberg’s aggressiveness and toughness are calling cards as he excels on both ends of the floor. He’s very good attacking defenses off the dribble and can create for his teammates or himself as he’s a solid finisher in traffic using a combination of floaters, pull ups and scoop shots.
And he’s a pest on the defensive end, using a combination of quickness of physicality to harass opposing ball handlers from throughout the game.
“I don’t think you can get better playing any other way,” Lundberg said. “So I push myself and I hope my teammates see that and play that way too. I love to compete. Whether the guy is bigger than me, older than me or whatever, I want to go at him.”
Lundberg’s drawn a fair amount of college interest to this point.
“Gustavus, River Falls and Jamestown have been the ones I’ve been in the most contact with,” Lundberg said. “A number of other MIAC schools have contacted me as well but I’ve talked to this three the most.”