USC Basketball G Boogie Ellis' Atlantis play wins him strong honor

USC Basketball had their ups and downs in the Bad Boy Mowers Battle 4 Atlantis tournament, but one of their top players in Boogie Ellis had essentially all ups. The total numbers on his Atlantis performance (three games) looked like this: 21 points per game, 3.7 rebounds per game, 51.3% FG %, and a 40% 3-PT FG %. He was great.

He wasn't invincible, as his 2.3 assists per game to 3.0 turnovers per game marks were less than ideal, but he was still a bright spot in the 1-2 trip. They won the first contest against BYU, but ended up dropping the semi-final game to the future Atlantis champs in No. 22 Tennessee. They lost the third-place game to Wisconsin as well.

But Ellis was not just a bright spot, but a very noticeable one as well. He was named to the Battle 4 Atlantis All-Tournament Team. He was the lone Trojan selected, proving how valuable he was to what USC did in the Bahamas. He's had a very good season in general. Even with him only having one steal on the defensive end of this tournament, he still averages 1.4 per game on the season.

His defensive rating is three points better than it was last year (his first season in Cardinal and Gold), at 98.5 this year. He's playing a career-high in minutes per game (32.7), but is clearly in good enough shape to where his legs have more than enough to still shoot at a high level. He's shooting at a 48.2% clip from the field this season. That's a career-high by 6.5%(!).

USC Basketball G Boogie Ellis has made 45.9% of his three-point attempts this season.

That's another career-high from Boogie Ellis, which is saying a lot, as the USC Basketball standout backcourt player had a career-high all the way up at 38.6% from deep coming into this season. His free throw shooting has not been what it should be, as he's hitting only 74.4% of his shots from the charity stripe this season, but he's putting up 18 points per game.

Sure enough, that's of course another career-high by 5.5 points. It's hard to focus on the bad when there's so much good coming from what he brings to the floor. He's finding 3.3 rebounds per game, which he's now done in three of his four seasons of college basketball (both his seasons of USC basketball).

He's a player who SC has been able to count on all season, and who they can likely count on the rest of the year as well. He clearly was serious about developing for the NBA in the offseason, as he's reaching the level he needed to get to in order to play at the next level.