When Ben Ferris arrives on campus next fall, he will be bringing lofty expectations — and some shiny hardware — along with him.
Ferris, currently a senior at Essex High School, was named as Vermont's Mr. Basketball earlier this week by the Burlington Free Press. These are not his first accolades of the spring: He was also named the Gatorade Vermont Boys Basketball Player of the Year just two weeks earlier.
After being a key cog to the Hornets' Division I state title run during the 2009-10 season, the 6-foot-3-inch Ferris was asked to be the star on a young team that had lost the rest of its starting lineup to graduation. Facing double teams almost from day one, Ferris still managed to find a way to deliver, finishing the season averaging a double-double at 23.4 points and 10.2 rebounds per game, while also dishing out 6.5 assists.
While the team had an up-and-down year, Ferris was able to lead the squad to an unlikely victory against the future state champions — Rice Memorial.
At Tufts, Ferris will look to continue the success that he had in high school. As the tallest guard on the roster, he will be competing for playing time with junior Amauris Quezada, sophomore Alex Goldfarb, and freshmen Kwame Firempong and Oliver Cohen, all major contributors in the Jumbos' 2010-11 campaign, which ended at 13-12.
He will also be in competition with fellow recruit CJ Moss, a 6-foot guard from The Taft School in Watertown, Conn. Ferris knows it will not be easy to break into the lineup, but he plans to do all he can to make it happen.
"I think I'll be competing for a lot of playing time," Ferris told the Burlington Free Press. "I'm definitely going down there and working as hard as I can."
