Bench Players with Bright Futures

Andrew Force March 6, 2021 @ 09:03 PM

Each state tournament the bright lights flash, the stars earn their justifiable praise and the team celebrates, but somehow we all miss the minor yet foretelling contributions made by bench players. Some of the bench players are seniors that spent a lifetime in their program and some are simply unproven and younger, less physically or athletically mature teammates. For whatever reason they did not start and probably did not start much at all this year. What will they do next year and beyond?  These are all impressions from this scout’s eye. PG Kayman Cooke (M.B.A.) Kayman got his hand caught in the cookie jar trying to wrap up Monster Man Eli Sutton under the tin. Cooke was whistled for the foul. Cooke is long and lean with impressive balance. He did not get to show much off in his first spurt. WG Arthur Bennett (M.B.A.) Arthur was largely a screen-setter, grunt guy for the M.B.A. men. He did defend D.J. Senter, a player who dominated the Big Red in the first eight minutes. In the first quarter, Senter scored 8 points on 4-5 shooting. In the second quarter, during which AB took up the task Senter committed three turnovers and scored zero points. Senter did tug down two offensive rebounds against Bennett and Friends in that second quarter. F Eli Sutton (Brentwood Academy) A football recruit, Sutton spent years helping this school win basketball games. Sutton played heavy minutes in the opening half and helped in every way imaginable: scoring, rebounding, defending. Eli scored 12 points in 12 minutes on the court. F Alec Rasmussen (Brentwood Academy) Brentwood Academy really, really struggled to defend the paint. Alec checked [player_tooltip player_id="1019052" first="Joshua" last="Roberts"] while he was on the floor and, I guess, stopped him from scoring. Roberts did not look at the basket at all during this time. Alec needs to improve his lateral mobility to expand his options defensively. When Roberts pulled him out high there was an obvious disadvantage for Rasmussen. He was very hardsy. Officials tend to be choosy when calling the hand-check away from the ball, but he might endure some tweets for this aspect of his style SF [player_tooltip player_id="1019052" first="Joshua" last="Roberts"] (M.B.A.) Roberts entered the game and instantly scored 5 points, making a three-pointer and tugging down two rebounds all within his first four minutes of action. Roberts was the only player to give first half points off the bench to the surging M.B.A. effort, finishing with 10 points and 5 rebounds and 4 assists. Roberts is a player with a strong PrepHoopsTN reputation as evidenced by his ranking adornment back in December 2019. M.B.A. Starters #0 [player_tooltip player_id="537240" first="Will" last="Montana"] (2021) #1 [player_tooltip player_id="537275" first="Miles" last="Versa"] (2021) #5 [player_tooltip player_id="1019051" first="Marcel" last="Reed"] (2023) #22 Jackson Francis (2022) #30 Grayson Morgan (2022) Brentwood Academy Starters #3 Trent McNair (2022) #5 [player_tooltip player_id="1145719" first="Tyler" last="Tanner"] (2024) #15 [player_tooltip player_id="775588" first="Caleb" last="Brooks"] (2021) #22 Drey Moss (2023) #35 DJ Senter (2022) For the best statewide coverage of high school basketball follow <a href="https://twitter.com/PrepHoopsTN">@PrepHoopsTN</a>.

Each state tournament the bright lights flash, the stars earn their justifiable praise and the team celebrates, but somehow we all miss the minor yet foretelling contributions made by bench players. Some of the bench players are seniors that spent a lifetime in their program and some are simply unproven and younger, less physically or athletically mature teammates. For whatever reason they did not start and probably did not start much at all this year. What will they do next year and beyond?