The top player in the 2005 recruitment class was Australia’s 6’10, 240-pound Center Ben Allen.So he played for Australian Institute of Sport (AIS).
247Sports Composite has slotted Allen as the 47th player in the class as a whole.
Mike Davis welcomed former Utah coach Kerry Rupp as his associate head coach, and Rap’s international and west coast relations helped him land in Indiana.
There was a lot of hype because the best AIS players were at the time, but Allen went on fire in Indiana and moved two years later.
His first season was neither bad nor atypical for newcomers, but he struggled hard in the second year.
Here are his complete college stats, including two years in Indiana and the last two years in St. Mary’s, California.
As you can see as a freshman, he played 10 minutes off the bench and offered a high post option to knock down 39.5 percent from behind the 3-point line.
In his second year, coach staff moved from Mike Davis to Kelvin Sampson, and Allen just couldn’t find a role. And he couldn’t find a chance to shoot, and only shot one shot from behind Ark all year round. It was one of the weirdest things we saw.
Notable in the two years at Innis, he didn’t reach the line and when he did, he couldn’t shoot well. He is only 50.0 percent.
It wasn’t surprising to see Allen leave two years later, and St. Mary’s makes sense because it has been a popular place for Australians for years.
After a year off due to the transfer rules that existed at the time, Allen was unable to see much court time in that first year. But for his honor, he stayed there and became a starter as his fifth-year senior, well beyond his past production, with double-digit numbers on average and 7.6 per game. Had the best season with the rebound.
Peegs Take: Ben Allen did not respond to his ranking in Indiana. He needed to be in the right system and the right players around him, and it took five years to find it. As explained in this class, taking foreign players is dangerous and ranking is a very incomplete science.
