Xavier 2015 Season Review: Trevon Bluiett Report Card

Thanks to everyone who participated in our inaugural Banners on the Parkway postseason player report cards. We'll be breaking down each player's grades for the rest of this week and on into next week, where we'll reveal the top three finishers according to the community. We'll also be assigning and explaining our own grades of each player. We'll start with the player who got the lowest community ranking and work our way up to the MVP. If you've missed any of the previous players, check them out in our Season in Review section.

Only one other player received as high a concentration of votes at the 70% of people who saw Trevon Bluiett as a B grade for the season. A line of 11/4.2/1.9 on .422/.326/.746 as a freshman probably had a lot to do with that. There were games where Trevon failed to have the impact that Musketeers fans had come to expect from him, but the fact that expectations for him were that high in the first place says a lot about the kind of season he had. And who gave the freshman that averaged 11 points for a Sweet 16 team an F?

Offense: B

Trevon finished fifth among qualifiers on the team with an offensive efficiency rating of 109.9. Fifth may not seem that high, but in recent years that same number would have put Trevon second or third on the team. He was a very good piece in a very efficient offense. Trevon scored efficiently by posting a free throw rate of 41.3 and also by being second only to Remy Abell with a turnover rate of only 14%. Trevon scored in double figures 19 times, but only four of those came in the final 11 games. If there is one thing keeping Trevon from earning an offensive A, it's his bad habit of getting a bit soft in big games. Bluiett scored only two in the Crosstown Shootout (albeit a big two), against Villanova in the Big East final, and against Arizona. Once he learns how to assert himself in big games against good teams, he'll be a conference player of the year candidate.

Defense: C

There aren't many players on Xavier who deserve a higher grade than this defensively. Trevon is mediocre on the glass for someone his size, and seems to miss his man more often than he should. As the season wore on, his feet got slower in the man to man to the point he risked being a liability against anyone inclined to get to the rim. In the 1-3-1 that became so vital to the team, he did well on the wing by virtue of his wingspan. Some firming up or trimming down of his weight and Trevon could become a plus defender. This year, he wasn't.

Overall: B

Trevon played in essentially 70% of available minutes as a freshman, he scored in double figures in 12 of 18 Big East regular season games, and he handled being the only Musketeer who was likely to create his own shot as well as anyone could have expected. Yes, he faded at the end a little bit, but he was everything he was advertised to be. Trevon Bluiett is on his way to an excellent Xavier career.