More to Bolingbrook boys hoops than Ben Moore

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Bolingbrook's Ben Moore makes a basket during a drill at practice Friday, Nov. 9, 2012. Staff photo by Erica Benson (Erica Benson)

Lots of people will be coming out to watch Bolingbrook senior forward Ben Moore, who committed to SMU a few weeks ago after a whirlwind recruiting process. There’s good reason for that, but opposing teams would be unwise to turn all their attention to Moore.

“Ben has skills of a guard, which is really advantageous for us. He’s a matchup nightmare for anybody because he can handle the ball so well,” Bolingbrook head coach Rob Brost said. “Anytime you have a kid with 25 scholarship offers and offers from the SEC, Big Ten and Big East, you know you have a really good player. But we’re more than just Ben, and we’ll show that this year.”

Moore will be the Raiders’ premier big man, but Kenny Williams, who saw significant playing time on varsity last year, and sophomore call-ups Julian Torres and Shakur Triplett boost the depth in and around the paint. Brost was still evaluating some starting spots and certain roles as the second week of preseason practice started, but the coach has already seen a couple of strengths with his team.

“Athleticism is one of our strong suits, so we want to get the ball up and down the floor and let our kids play a little bit, but at the same time play right,” Brost said.

The depth in the post and slew of solid guards — Prentiss Nixon, Kendall Guyton, Calvin Price, TJ Redmond and DJ Spencer among them — leads to another strength.

“We’re so interchangeable between players and we can play guys at multiple spots,” Brost said. “I don’t know specifically at this point what the roles are going to be, but it’s pretty easy to see Ben Moore is going to be on the floor a lot and we’ll fill the roles after we practice a little bit more. But we have some very good players and we’ll be able to do a lot of different things.”

The Raiders’ on-the-floor skill is complemented by off-the-floor dedication, which has impressed Brost.

“It’s a testament to our kids that from April up until now they’ve been doing a great job in the weight room, keeping themselves in shape and doing the right things, and you can feel that we have a chance to be pretty good,” the coach said. “That doesn’t guarantee anything, but if you don’t work hard that guarantees you’re not going to be very good, and our kids have really bought into that.”