[dropcap]During[/dropcap] his first two seasons on the Hilltop, Geoffrey Groselle saw only limited action, most of it in mop-up duty at the end of blowout wins. From 2012-2014, he played a combined 96 minutes in 32 games, and had 32 points and 26 rebounds total over those two seasons.
It’s fair to say that most people didn’t expect anything substantial from Groselle in 2014-15. The fourth bullet point on his 2013-14 season review for GoCreighton.com says “Was team’s first big man off the bench on Dec. 3 at Long Beach State”, showing the lack of highlights to draw from during his sophomore campaign. Accordingly, he was almost anonymous to opposing fans and out-of-town media; after a big first half in a road game at Providence, one of their beat writers remarked on Twitter that he was embarrassed to say he had no idea who Groselle was. McNamara could be excused, as Groselle scored 12 combined points in 21 Big East Games in 2013-14, and he’d now exceeded that total in one half of one game as he poured in 14 first-half points at PC. Creighton fans weren’t sure who this guy was either; he certainly wasn’t the same player they’d watched the previous two years.
Season in Review:
Nine of Groselle’s top ten career scoring games came in 2014-15; the first came early in the season when he torched Eastern Illinois for 15 points on 7-8 shooting. Here’s what I wrote after that game:
“Checking in at the 14:52 mark of the first half, he straight up went to work. First, he made a layup on an assist from Milliken to make it 16-10 Jays. Then on the next possession, he scored on a rather nifty up-and-under move to shield the defender with the rim. After a stop, he scored again, this time on a pass from Austin Chatman. And then after another defensive stop, he scored ANOTHER bucket, a really nice one-handed lay-in with his left hand, to give him eight straight points. EIU called timeout to regroup because they couldn’t stop Geoffrey Groselle — think about that sentence again — and the CLink went bananas. Here was a guy that had worked hard but had been derailed by injury, finally able to show how good he might be able to be. To see his teammates beaming with joy as he ran off the court to a standing ovation was pretty cool.”
The center position was marred by inconsistency all year long, however, and Groselle was not immune from that. After his big game against EIU, he promptly turned in three straight scoreless games in which he logged a combined 21 minutes played. He had another big game at North Texas (on a day when almost no one else played well), scoring 10 points in 19 minutes, and then scored 14 a couple of nights later at Providence. Groselle was rewarded with his first career start the next game against Georgetown, but was mostly ineffective against the Hoyas’ size and skill.
For the next month, Groselle struggled, starting just one more game and scoring a combined 19 points with 11 rebounds in those seven games. On February 4 at Xavier, he had a huge game on both ends of the floor — scoring 15 points with 7 rebounds in a career-high 26 minutes of action, while almost completely shutting down Xavier’s excellent center Matt Stainbrook by denying him the ball. It was a terrific all-around performance for the Bluejay big man, and one that he built on. He followed it up with 13 points and 4 boards at St. John’s, and would start seven of the team’s final eight games, scoring eight or more points in five of them.
Down the stretch, Groselle was one of the Bluejays’ best players. No one expected that back in October, and if they tell you that they did, they’re lying.
Next Year:
Over the final ten games of the season, six of them against eventual NCAA Tournament teams, Groselle averaged 9.1 points and 3.9 rebounds while making 65% of his shots (40-61). Those aren’t All-Big East numbers, but they’re solid, and trending in the right direction. With a healthy offseason to work on improvement instead of on getting healthy, it’s not a stretch to think he could improve on those numbers a bit in 2015-16.
Can Groselle be a consistent 10/5 guy? He was close to being that kind of player over the season’s final third, so it’s not as crazy as it seems. The biggest obstacle is conditioning; he played 20+ minutes just six times in 2014-15, and even in the season’s final ten games when he was playing extremely well, he averaged just 18.2 minutes a game. Looking at his Points Per 40 Minute numbers, it makes you wonder what he might be able to do if he was able to play for longer stretches — he averaged 17.6 points and 8.0 rebounds per 40 minutes in 2014-15.
Defensively, he needs to make strides as well, but with his foot trouble behind him, I’m extremely curious to see if an offseason of workouts can help with his movement. His quickness and agility were leaps and bounds better this year than at any other point in his collegiate career, and any further improvements he can make in those areas will only help him to defend his fellow Big East centers.
Even if you believe his performance over the season’s final ten games was a bit of an aberration, and he’s destined to fall back down production-wise, it seems realistic to project him for around 7.5 points and 3.5 boards a game. That’s still a mighty valuable player. And if his performance over the last third of the season was for real? Then Groselle should have a heckuva senior season for the Bluejays.