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Some technical difficulties slowed our poll results, but we’re back with the player-by-player autopsy of the season and a look at where each guy needs to develop to fit into next year’s plan.
Keonte Kennedy made his decision to leave Xavier in February. Unlike most other collegiate players looking for a transfer, though, Kennedy simply quit playing at that point. Keonte committed to Xavier (twice), but attracted attention from other high majors for his ability to shoot from range and score all over the court. At Xavier he never showcased either of those skills.
Banners Community Grade: C
| Keonte Kennedy | Votes | % of votes |
|---|---|---|
| A | 4 | 1.90% |
| B | 23 | 11.10% |
| C | 118 | 57% |
| D | 45 | 21.70% |
| F | 17 | 8.20% |
| Community GPA 2.12 |
The Banners community evidently looks past Kennedy leaving the team and prefers to focus on a stretch in late November and early December where it looked like he might be a contributor. In that early season span KK had games of eight and six points and a game where collected five rebounds. All of his Xavier career highs occurred before the Shootout on December 8th.
Banners Staff Grade: F
It’s hard to give anything but an F to someone who willingly skipped the second half of the season and basketball’s version of the final. Kennedy likely had his reasons for leaving and they may have been very good. It’s worth noting that no ill will toward him comes from the program. Still, the guy left and in doing so made an already painfully thin team even more stretched.
Kennedy had his on court struggles as well. Elias Harden received a D from the community but outperformed Kennedy in essentially every statistical measure. Keonte never quite found his range, shooting 25.7% behind the arc, and he struggled to make an impact elsewhere either. His defensive rebounding rate of 11.8% was undoubtedly the highlight of his stat line, but his offensive efficiency rate of 83.6 was the worst on the team.
It wasn’t lack of opportunity that undid Kennedy either, in Xavier’s first 13 games he played double digit minutes in 12 of them and over 20 minutes in four of those. Kennedy played two more double digit minute games after that, one of those another 20+ minute appearance. In that time, though, Keonte simply couldn’t get the job done. Unable to defend well enough to join the late season renaissance in the department, Kennedy also couldn’t score well enough for his offense to keep him on the floor.
Offseason Outlook:
Keonte Kennedy has landed at TCU for the next season. Or at least he had until he opened his recruitment for the fourth time. As of now, Kennedy sits unclaimed in the transfer portal.