Xavier 2016 season in review: Remy Abell player report card

Thanks to everyone who participated in this year's 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 finisher 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.

The community dropped Remy into that C+/B- range, a perfectly acceptable result even for a core class in your major. What is more interesting about Remy's results is how narrowly they focused in on him as a B-level player. Only one other Musketeer got more votes in a single column than Remy did in the B's, and we'll get to that guy a little later on. In the meantime, we have Remy, who we are in almost unanimous agreement was neither spectacular nor mediocre this season.

Offense: C

Remy shook off a slow start to put together a respectable season on offense. He hit 11 fewer threes in 16 fewer attempts than he had last year and saw his shooting percentage from inside the arc drop by .152, so the efficiency that he brought to the table as a junior was missing. For all of that, he still knew his role, keeping his usage rate low, making his free throws, and rarely turning the ball over. A few more games like his explosion against Butler would have been nice, but Remy was more or less a tertiary offensive force on a team that didn't need him to get a lot of buckets.

Defense: B

As the team's best man defender, Remy was kind of hamstrung by his teammates' limitations here. To get his best scorers onto the floor, Coach Mack had to play 1-3-1 or offer a lot of help in a man, whereas Remy really shined (shone?) when put on an island and asked to bird dog an opponent. Opposing guards' scoring lines don't always reflect Remy's work because of how much switching defenses Xavier did, but he made a lot of lives miserable as an eraser this year.

The way Remy's career ended was nothing short of a kidney shot, but it shouldn't overshadow the great work he did on defense in a Xavier uniform.

Overall: B

Remy was, for the most part, what the team needed him to be. He couldn't quite find his traction on offense, but Xavier had the luxury of half a dozen capable scorers who could paper over that particular crack in Remy's game. He added a shot of much-needed athleticism to Xavier's perimeter play, and his enthusiasm for the game and willingness to get stuck in were big factors in Xavier's enjoyable if truncated season. The strong consensus in the voting on Remy reflects how reliable a presence he was on the court for Xavier this year.