re: Crystal Balls Flowing in for LSU re: Moussa Cisse

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Is it the general consensus among the recruiting community that he is an elite defender?

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Yes, you dont block 9 shots a game as a rim protector and not be considered an elite defender, that's your primary job, make sure nothing goes in from shots near the rim. When you can take away the "easiest" shot any team has and force them into shooting jump shots most of a game, it's only going to make that team that much worse on offense and make their offense that much worse overall. Now you may have anomaly games where a team is ridiculous from 3 even blocking the rim, but a team wont shoot the lights out on you most nights as a result of you taking the close shots away.

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The best LSU example of this would be Jordan Mickey. He was an excellent shot blocker, especially for his size, but he had plenty of room to grow on defense because sometimes he would go for the block instead of going straight up to contest.

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Mickey had the best defensive rating of anyone that played his last year here and one of the top defensive box plus minuses as well. He wasn't just only a shot blocker, no one is perfect defensively, but his defensive box plus minus was better than Kavell Bigby-Williams' who you say was better defensively. Now it's not a perfect stat, but I think that clearly shows Mickey just wasn't a 1 trick pony defensively.