I had been saying it for a while, and I said it a lot this past week: Ben Moore is getting ready for a breakout season.

When the news hit Wednesday night that Markus Kennedy would likely be ineligible for the first half the season, SMU fans were distraught.

SMU is a rising power and unfortunately, that means that a large majority of its fans are just getting to know the team this season.

That also means that most of them, maybe heard about center Yanick Moreira dropping 38 points against Australia over the summer while playing for the Angola national team in the 2014 FIBA World Cup, but still had no idea how good he would be.

And if they didn’t know that, they wouldn’t have known that Moore was this secret weapon, Head Coach Larry Brown hadn’t “[figured] out how to use” yet.

“We’ve been trying to experiment to see where he can be an extra ball handler,” Borwn said.”Unfortunately he’s been playing on the perimeter. But now we are short handed up front.”

With Brown’s hand forced, Moore got the start at the four and was unstoppable.

He finished with 22 points on 8/12 shooting, nine rebounds, and five assists in 28 minutes.

Oh yea, I almost forgot, he blocked two shots too.

The sophomore’s 22 points and 28 minutes were new career highs, while his rebounds and assists tied his previous career highs.

“He was great and he’s been like that everyday,” Brown said. “We’re going to need him.”

Perhaps the greatest thing about Moore’s dominance on Friday is that as good as he is offensively, he might be even better defensively.

Moore is 6’8″, 205 pounds and ridiculously athletic.

He has the motor and the tenacity to guard one through four and was my pick to be SMU’s defensive MVP.

That being said let’s have a little perspective; Lamar is not a very good team; they have only won seven games over the past two seasons.

It is good that Moore had a great game, but now go do it against Ganzaga– go produce at a high level against one of the best teams in the country.

If he can do that then all of our praise for him over the past three days would have been warranted.

Side note: The number on Moore’s jersey is 00– so we at the Daily Campus have decided to call him Agent 00Moore, ala James Bond. So when SMU plays Gonzaga on Monday, if Ben Moore does something note worthy, talk about it on Twitter using #00Moore.