(11-12-2020 10:09 PM)BellarmineGrad Wrote: https://www.courier-journal.com/story/sp...236336002/
Ben Johnson may be the front runner for Kentucky Mr. Basketball. He is undeniably a great scorer. He drips with confidence. He also looks to be a good ball handler. Not sure if he can be a PG, probably a 2. He is going to have to come in with an attitude about playing defense if he wants to contribute right away or he could end up getting the Brent Bach treatment. He needs to get on serious training regimen or he will start college way behind.
Curt Hopf really could be a a huge signing. His administrative history, for lack of a better term, is obviously concerning, but I cannot believe that Scotty has not satisfied himself in this regard. He transferred to Barr Reeve after his sophmore season but was ruled ineligible for his junior year by the IHSAB. They deemed the transfer to be for athletic purposes. His parents sued to get his eligibility and lost.
The reasons I find this troubling:
(1) He claimed the transfer was because he was being bullied at Forrest Park. The board simply did not believe him and stated that the tranfer was transparently for athletic reasons. IMO, if parents want to move so their extremely talented child can have a better athletic experience there is no reason they should not be able to do that without him losing a very valuable year of eligibilty. Alas, Indiana rules say otherwiase. The problem here is that there seems to have been some prevarication involved with the claim of bullying. If the bullying allegations were true, it does not speak well of his chances of weathering the storm that we all know Scotty can be.
(2) The incident smacks of over involved parenting. Don't really know, just saying there is a certain whiff of it.
With regards to basketball, the young man looks to be a potential star stretch 3. He is not a spot up shooter but a shooter/scorer/slasher/ ball handler. He looks like the kind of player that leads good D1 teams in scoring. The fact that he has signed early with Bellarmine is a great indicator that he really wants to play Bellarmine basketball.
