Official Ben SImmons Thread

http://socialhub.usatodayhss.com/social-hub/blogs/item/800-the-ben-simmons-blog

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The 6-foot-10 combo forward from Melbourne, Australia is back with his latest blog.
Ben Simmons has only been in the U.S. since January and played in just one tournament, but he's shown enough on the court to earn a No. 3 overall ranking in the ESPN 60. Simmons, a 6-foot-10 combo forward who hails from Melbourne, Australia, helped Montverde (Montverde, Fla.) win a national title in April and now he's got heavyweight college suitors like Kentucky, Duke, Ohio State and LSU, among others, on his trail. He's agreed to give USA TODAY HSS exclusive access into his world by chronicling everything from intimate details about his recruitment to his everyday life in a blog.
Hey everyone, this is Ben Simmons and I'm back with another blog.
Sorry it's been so long, but I've been away for the summer in Australia. I'm happy to be back in Florida at school now.
It was a tough, long summer, but I got to put a lot of work in and I definitely feel like I've gotten better.
The first day I flew back home to Australia I only got to relax for eight hours then I was already on a plane to Perth for a Boomers Camp for the Australian National team. I was there for about a week practicing. After that I joined a semi-pro team, the Bulleen Boomers, with my brother Corey.
We played in a league and it was great preparation just playing against grown men from ages 19-30. The physicality alone helped me so much. The main focus this summer was lifting and getting stronger so I'd be prepared to play at Montverde again.
It definitely wasn't a vacation it was more of a work-filled summer for me. I did a lot of skill work with my older brother and things like that. I definitely felt like it was a productive summer.
One of the best parts of being home was having everyone back at the house and having family dinners and things like that. Just joking around a lot and things like that. I love that. We're all pretty close so being with them was great as always, and I was able to eat my mom's steak and Caesar salad. I think I had that about four times a week. It's so good and I was lifting a lot during the week so I had to make sure I got the protein.
I'm up to about 6-foot-10, 230 pounds now.
I definitely feel like I got more out of playing with the national team then playing AAU. I can see parts of my game that have grown over the summer so I'm pretty excited about that.
I've got a long way to go to be the player that I want to be, but for now I'm just dedicating myself to putting the work in. I'm not really worried about any rankings or anything like that.
I did see that I was pretty high in the rankings, but I've never played against the big time guys in my class. I know who all of the top players are in the class and I'm sure I'll be playing against a lot of them this season. For me, I always go hard at everyone. I don't really worry about who I'm playing against.
It's good to be back with my teammates!
I heard that some of them committed to schools like Justin Bibbs committed to Virginia Tech and D'Angelo Alexander is committed to Ohio State. That's good stuff!
Now that that's out of the way we're all focused on being the best team that we can be. We've already started playing pickup. I think we're gonna be really good. We're gonna be really athletic and guys are really getting after it in the games. Everyone wants to win another national title and that's the only thing we're focused on as a team.
We've definitely had a few college coaches come out and watch our scrimmages. This stuff is still all new to me so that's crazy to me that coaches come out so much to just watch you play pickup. I've seen LSU, Ohio State and a few other schools so far.
Over the summer I kept in touch with coaches from LSU, Duke, Kentucky, UNC, Florida, Ohio State and a few other schools through email for the most part.
That was pretty cool to start forming those relationships with the coaches.
My biggest thing now though is to do well academically and, like I said earlier, help my team win another national title.
I've even got a calendar here and I cross off the days while I wait for the season to start. We open on November 27 and I cannot wait!
I know we'll be good, but there's always room for improvement. We lost Kasey (Hill), Dakari (Johnson) and Devin (Williams) and that's big. But my teammates and I talk about this all the time: We want that second ring.
I know I'll have to step up a lot this year, and my teammates and I are ready to do whatever it takes to get that second ring.
OK, everyone I really appreciate you reading my blog. I hope you guys enjoyed it and I'll be blogging a lot more now that I'm back.
Take care!
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http://espn.go.com/college-sports/r...4-recruit-ben-simmons-commits-lsu-tigers-2015

No. 4 recruit Ben Simmons picks LSU
Updated: October 14, 2013, 2:27 PM ET
By Jeff Goodman | ESPN.com

LSU beat out Kentucky, Kansas and Duke to land one of the elite players in the Class of 2015 in Australian power forward Ben Simmons.

"I know a lot of people will be struck by me deciding to go to LSU, but that's where I felt most comfortable," Simmons told ESPN.com on Monday. "I feel I can progress a lot there, and I feel blessed to have offers from all those schools."

Simmons, No. 4 in the ESPN 60, is a 6-foot-10, 230-pound skilled forward and the son of Dave Simmons -- who spent more than a decade playing in Australia. The younger Simmons is currently at Montverde Academy in Florida.

It's a huge pickup for Tigers coach Johnny Jones and his program, which had several ties to Simmons, the most important one being that LSU assistant David Patrick is Simmons' godfather and played with Dave Simmons in Australia.

Patrick grew up and played professionally in Australia and was integral in getting guys like Patty Mills and Matthew Dellavedova to Saint Mary's when he was an assistant with the Gaels. LSU also recently received a commitment from Simmons' teammate at Montverde -- guard Jalyn Patterson.

The recruiting process had just started to heat up for the 17-year-old Simmons, who was being pursued by many elite programs after moving to Montverde last winter.

"I am extremely thankful to all the programs who recruited me," Simmons said. "But I really felt comfortable with all the support I will have at LSU."
 
pinched from a facebook group:


Ben Simmons did his rising star status no harm whatsoever with a dominant performance during the City of Palms Basketball Classic played last month in Florida, in which his Montverde Academy took home the title.

The tournament is considered to be the premier boy's High School basketball championships in America and consists of teams from around the country.
Simmons has committed to Louisiana State University for 2015.

Check his 31 point, 13 board, four assist and four block effort out in their opening game of the tournament, which he finished with averages of 18ppg in 62% shooting, 11.8rpg, 3apg, 2bpg and 1.25spg.
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Posted April 18, 2014
LSU recruit Ben Simmons could be the next ambassador of Australian basketball
Recruiting
By Jeremy Woo
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Ben Simmons chose to attend Montverde without ever stepping foot on the school’s Florida campus. (Kelly Kline/Getty)
Ben Simmons hunched uncomfortably behind a table at Madison Square Garden, with a towel over his shoulder and a microphone in front of him. Montverde Academy’s 17-year-old junior forward had just led his team to a second consecutive national high school title, winning MVP honors in the process. Save for the white National Champions hat pulled low over his brow with tag still attached, you wouldn’t have known it.
The Australian-born Simmons listened quietly as his coach, Kevin Boyle fielded questions from media. Boyle discussed not what his star had just accomplished against Oak Hill Academy, but what was left for him to do – the improvements necessary to be a star, not just a contributor in the NBA.
It’s tough to blame Boyle. When you watch a player like Simmons, all you can see is the future, which will begin at the collegiate level in 2015 with the LSU Tigers. At 6-9, he moves unstoppably on the fast break, handling the ball and seeing the floor like a guard. He’s explosive off the floor, strokes left-handed threes and defends the 2, 3 and 4. He’s like the unfairly rated player your little brother created on Xbox.
Then, Boyle was asked about the past. In a narrow win the day before, Simmons took just seven shots. He still made six of them, but seven shots weren’t enough, Boyle said, as he’d reminded his team several times. Ben had to touch the ball more.
Today, everyone listened. Simmons had taken 20 shots and made 11 of them. He had scored 24 points while still finding time to snatch 11 rebounds and dish out 5 assists. Montverde had won comfortably.
For Simmons, learning to maximize his scoring output will be critical at the next levels, where his other gifts — passing, rebounding, shot-blocking — will translate, but won’t be enough to make him the superstar Boyle believes he can be.
It’s all part of an ongoing adjustment to the American game, a process that has paid major dividends in just a year and a half.
“The basketball culture is a lot different in Australia,” says Simmons. “It’s more of a team-organized thing, and here it’s a lot of individual play. You have to kind of change your game style. I’m definitely learning I need to be more selfish and take over the game sometimes.”
Ben’s father Dave, a 6-8 bruiser from the Bronx, played professionally overseas for 15 years. While starring for Melbourne Tigers of Australia’s National Basketball League in the early ‘90s, he met his wife Julie, an Australian native with four children from a previous marriage. Shortly after, their daughter Olivia was born — but the couple would struggle to conceive another child.
Five years later, they had Ben, who was born in Melbourne during the Opening Ceremonies of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
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Ben learned to take care of the basketball from a young age. (Photo courtesy of the Simmons family)
“I think it was an omen,” says Julie, “that he was destined for big things. Ben grew up in the gym — my husband was playing basketball, the kids were playing basketball, so Ben had no choice but to be dragged around from stadium to stadium, from a newborn basically.”
Ben began walking at 10 months and started running shortly after his first birthday. Six months later, he started dribbling the ball with a pacifier in his mouth.
Noticing his son’s quickly improving skills, Dave placed Ben in camps and clinics with much older players. By age 5, he was practicing with 12-year-olds. Basketball came to him easily, but competition didn’t.
“I never wanted to play in the games,” he says. “I was kind of nervous and shy. I used to sit on the bench with my mom. She used to always say, ‘I’ll give you 100 dollars if you go play.’”
Once Ben took the floor for the first time, the nerves disappeared. He surprised even his father by making the local U-12 club as a 7-year-old. Also starring in rugby and Australian rules football, Ben attributes his competitive edge to playing with older boys. And the older he got, the more notoriety he gained — soon enough, he was considered the top player in his age group within the Australian systems. He’d grown to 6-8 at age 15, using his guard skills to get into the paint and his newfound size to dunk everything.
But the best competition was across the Pacific. In Australia, American high school stars are the standard by which youth players are measured. And when an invitation arrived from the prestigious Pangos All-American camp in 2012, the time had come for Ben, an American dual citizen, to test himself.
“I’m not even sure how I got the invite,” he says. “It said DeAndre Jordan and Brandon Jennings had been to it. I thought it was just a joke. Then my dad called me, and explained they wanted me to come to the camp. That’s when I got really excited.”
The camp was Simmons’ first appearance stateside, and he didn’t disappoint, earning a spot in the all-star game as one of the youngest kids at the camp. Every major recruiting service and countless scouts looked on as Simmons shone alongside future All-Americans Wayne Selden, Stanley Johnson and Cliff Alexander. He left California an elite prospect.
“It was a breakout event for him,” says camp director Dinos Trigonis. “He was a big, very versatile forward that could play inside-outside, didn’t force the issue and let the game come to him. He was very skilled player, very polished, with a terrific all-around game.”
After Pangos, Ben started receiving mail from the top American prep schools and the interest was mutual. The closely-knit Simmons family mulled over the options. He had older siblings in the States — sister Emily working in Chicago, brother Liam an assistant coach at Nicholls State in Louisiana. They’d be around to look out for him. The decision was especially difficult for Julie, letting her last child leave home – to go halfway around the world, at that. But the move had been on Dave’s mind for a long time, as he watched Ben dominate at every Australian youth level.
“It was more or less about Ben continuing to improve,” he says. “We knew to get him to realize his potential, he needed to get over to the States and play with kids similar to him in size and athleticism. We started to wonder what would happen if he stayed here, and if this was going to be the best option for him.”
Ben and his family chose Montverde Academy, a small boarding school outside of Orlando with a considerable amount of international students and strong academic support. The basketball program was nationally prominent, and offered the chance to play for Boyle — who had developed NBA players including Kyrie Irving and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist while coaching St. Patrick High School in New Jersey.
Simmons had befriended Montverde stars Kasey Hill and Dakari Johnson at Adidas Nations and the U17 World Championships the previous summer, liked the idea of Florida weather and embraced the challenge of American ball. He decided on the school without ever setting foot on campus. He enrolled at Montverde in January 2013, and quickly won over his new coach.
“I was impressed with the way he carried himself,” says Boyle. “He’s confident, yet humble and respectful. You could feel right away that he would fit in, because it’s important here that the athletes especially don’t think they’re more important than anyone else in the school. If you have that attitude here, you won’t last long. He fit the mold right away.”
Joining the country’s top-ranked high school team, Simmons, coming off a minor knee injury, eased in while the Eagles blazed their way to a national high school championship. Simmons dealt with homesickness, living away from his parents for the first time over those first six months.
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Simmons could be the next star for the Australian national team. (Sandra Mu/Getty)
Simmons decided to head back to Australia for the summer to train — and his services were in high demand. He accepted an invitation to play for the Australian men’s national team (known as the Boomers), and became the youngest player ever to appear in a game for the senior side, logging minutes against New Zealand in the Oceania Series.
“The thing that really stood out to me the first time I saw him in our environment was his ability to see the floor, pass and create for others,” says Boomers head coach Andrej Lemanis. “That’s a special skill, and that’s an Australian style. Everybody creates for the good of the team. We believe making the extra pass is a good way to play.”
Simmons fit right in with the senior team alongside childhood friend Dante Exum, an 18-year-old guard and projected lottery selection in June’s NBA draft. Both have American fathers — Dante’s father Cecil played at North Carolina with Michael Jordan before playing pro in Australia — and offer elite athleticism that the Boomers have never had.
“In practice, Ben was playing defense and got blown by, which as a coach is frustrating,” remembers Lemanis. “But as the guy was going to the rim, Ben turned, pinned the ball on the backboard, got the ball off the backboard, took two dribbles and led the break down the other way, which ended up in a score. Maybe that was just part of his strategy.”
Before the start of his junior season, Simmons ended his college recruitment, giving a verbal commitment to LSU. After taking an unofficial visit to Baton Rouge, Simmons chose the Tigers over offers from Duke, Kansas, Kentucky and others. LSU had an early in, thanks to assistant coach David Patrick — Dave’s former teammate, and Ben’s godfather.
“At the time David became his godfather, no one was thinking anything about what was going to happen,” says the elder Simmons, who lived with Patrick during their playing days. “We weren’t thinking, ‘Years down the track, I’ll be recruiting him.’ He’s a great family friend.”
With the World Championships approaching this summer, Lemanis hopes Ben will be able to attend his first training camp in May. With Simmons and Exum in the fold and young players including Matthew Dellavedova and Patty Mills logging significant NBA minutes, Australian basketball has hit an upswing. Though Ben’s not guaranteed a spot on the roster, he’ll get a long look.
“I think that just speaks to the quality of development we have here in this country,” says Lemanis. “We’re a long way from everyone else, and I think sometimes that gets us overlooked by the rest of the world, but I think the proof is starting to be in the products.”
With the win over Oak Hill, Eagles finished the season 28-0 (their sole loss to Chicago Curie was reversed by forfeit after it was revealed the Condors used ineligible players). He was just named the MaxPreps Junior Player of the Year. Next season, a third consecutive national title will be within reach.
Next week, Simmons will debut on the American AAU circuit for Orlando-based Each 1 Teach 1. He’ll have plenty of opportunities to play in front of scouts and evaluators, with the No. 1 ranking in the 2015 class up for grabs. Given all he’s done to this point, it’s easy to make the case that he should already hold it.
In a year, Simmons will prepare to take on the college game, and in two, he could be the next one-and-done star to make the NBA jump. For a kid who’s always played above his years, the progression is natural.
“He’s improving constantly,” says Boyle. “The scary part is, I think he’ll be even better next year. He’s really improving his shot. I think he’ll be taking more jump shots, developing his pull-up and his second move when someone helps. When that happens, and he’s not that far, it’s going to be scary. The sky could be the limit for him.”

http://college-basketball.si.com/2014/04/18/ben-simmons-lsu-tigers-australian-basketball/
 
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