Bennie Rhodes at Fresno State

 *** Based on a note from Bennie, we've corrected his age in the following article -- we had him a year older than he actually is.

It's too bad Fresno State's nickname/mascot isn't the Jets because the headline over the article of City College of San Francisco's (CCSF) Bennie Rhodes' joining Coach Steve Cleveland's program could then be 'Bennie and the Jets' (link to rimshot)

Rhodes is a highly traveled basketballer, playing high school ball at Castlemont (Oakland) and then enrolling at Mt. Zion Academy in North Carolina for a post-grad year. He then played as a freshman -- six of the first ten games -- at Southern Methodist University in 2007-2008 before being sidelined by a left tibia stress fracture. Then, he returned to the Bay Area for two seasons at CCSF.

Here's a description of Rhodes we wrote last season based on our observations of him in one game -- a contest against a physically vastly inferior team:

Bennie Rhodes  (Castlemont) - didn't show much on shooting range tonight but was able to dribble-drive around the Cabrillo defenders and either score or get fouled, a very good athlete but a seemingly slight body

A NorCalPreps post from an earlier time (last summer) said this:

Bennie Rhodes, 6-foot-5 sophomore wing, San Francisco City- In the second day of the tourney, Rhodes was the most dominant player for the Rams offensively. He scored on alley-op dunks, dunks in transition, three pointers, floaters in the lane and pull-up jumpers. A natural shooting guard, when he gets it going offensively, he is hard to stop.

Rhodes is 21 -- 22 come next April.

We would say that Rhodes is a steal as a walk-on -- in fact, something seems amiss that he is a walk-on but we've been unable to determine the 'why' of his current collegiate status.

He is a good athlete with decent shooting and ballhandling talent -- we see him foremost as a slasher -- and has the physical prerequisites to be a solid defender.

If there is a knock against him, it's that he doesn't necessarily bring 'it' every night -- that he seemingly could produce more. Coaches don't bring in community college players such as Rhodes unless the player has the chance for earning satisfying minutes so watch this situation.