As the calendar turned to the start of the college basketball season in November, the biggest question surrounding Providence was who would step up to help out Kris Dunn.
Would it be wings Rodney Bullock or Jalen Lindsey? Fellow guards Kyron Cartwright or Junior Lomomba? Or would it be Ben Bentil, the lone true big man with experience on the roster?
Two months later, that question has been answered, and it's been answered as authoritatively as possible.
Bentil isn't just the clear No. 2 option for the Friars, he's so much more than that. He currently leads the Big East in scoring at 19.4 points per game and is fifth in rebounding at 7.9 per game. That's not just All-Big East good. That's potential All-America candidate good.
How did the 6-foot-9 center go from averaging 6.4 points and under five rebounds a game as a freshman to the highest levels of success in college hoops just a year later?
"Nothing was ever handed to me," Bentil told CBS Sports about his philosophy on hard work. "I always had to go get it."
Boy, did he ever go and get it.
Bentil describes himself as a quiet person that keeps to himself and is also very competitive. Those around him agree, but also throw in how funny he is once you get to know him. He enjoys listening to music and playing video games, but he also reads a lot. He just finished reading Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, one of the most famous books ever written by an African author. He liked that, but his favorite book is The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz.
But more than quiet and independent and funny and well-read, Bentil describes himself another way.
"I'm a family guy," Bentil says about his priorities.
He fiercely sticks with those who take the time to know and open their hearts to him. And given all of the places he's been over the last six years, his family is rather large now.
The first one he knew was his traditional family in Ghana. He left when he was 15. He wasn't pursuing basketball -- it wasn't even his favorite sport at the time -- but instead he wanted to study in America and try to create a better life. He moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he lived for a little while. But as an athletic, 6-foot-5, 15-year-old in America, basketball was a pretty natural pursuit. And that's where he met Terrell Myers.
Myers is the coach at St. Andrew's School in Wilmington, Delaware, one of the strongest academic institutions in the country for high schoolers. With that kind of profile, the school obviously doesn't have the widest range of players who can attend. This is what makes it all the more astounding that Bentil fell in his lap.
Myers was out at a basketball tournament to watch one of his cousins play. That's where he first saw him.
"I see a kid there, a freshman who was just dunking everything," Myers said. "A little raw, but dunking everything. I said to 'it'd be nice to have a kid like that at my school.' I don't know who he is at all at the time. I come back home and get a call from a buddy of mine saying he has a kid looking to go to a boarding school. I tell him, 'I don't know much about the kid, tell him to come by and apply at the school, and we'll go from there.' The very next day, Ben Bentil walks in my door. And I'm like 'oh my gosh, are you joking?' It's the same kid from the tournament who was dunking everything."
St. Andrew's is a boarding school, so he left the family he was living with in Philadelphia and went to live in Wilmington. The adjustment to the rigorous academic schedule didn't faze him, and his athletic career on the basketball court blossomed. The skinny 6-5 kid who first attended the school eventually turned himself into a strong 6-8 forward through natural growth and hard work.
"He works extremely hard," Myers said. "He works on his conditioning, on his body, on his game, works hard in the classroom. He's just a kid that works hard all the time. He's success-driven, he wants to be the best at everything he does. He put the work in even when he was in high school."
It was also at St. Andrew's that he met Austin Tilghman, another player having success this season with the plucky Monmouth Hawks. Bentil and Tilghman became fast friends through their work together on the floor.
"We were working on our games so much together that we basically became inseparable," Tilghman said. "That's where we became best friends. We just both stayed together all the time."
That level of friendship eventually led to something more: family.
"They're brothers from a different mother," Myers said.
Tilghman lived in Delaware at the time, and asked Bentil if he'd rather stay with him in Delaware than in Philadelphia. Bentil said yes. Tilghman's parents welcomed Bentil with open arms, and eventually it became a more permanent arrangement as he began living with the family during all of his time away from school.
"Our bond is unbreakable," Tilghman said. "I have a brother already, but Ben is like another, bigger brother to me."
That arrangement continues to this day. Bentil lives with Tilghman's family in his time away from school, and when they're each at school, the two text back and forth with each other daily. When Bentil is back in Delaware, another side of that family-driven, caring personality shows that he doesn't brag about or discuss: he loves community service.
"He loves to give back," Myers said. "He's a very caring person with a huge heart. He's done camps with me over Christmas time for inner-city kids. He just wants to give back. He loves kids. He actually helped develop this program we run at St. Andrew's along with Austin where we give gifts to kids over Christmas. Just something that they did. They took it upon themselves to run with it and create it at St. Andrew's."
He chose Providence as his next family after graduating St. Andrew's and it's there where his play on the floor began to truly skyrocket.
Things didn't always come as easy as they appear to Bentil on the floor. Myers estimates that they spent hours on end just working on catching the basketball, on his footwork, on his skill in the post. Myers even moved him to point guard once in high school just so that he could develop his ability to see the floor. All of that time and effort eventually led to big schools calling, and Bentil eventually choosing Providence over others like Miami (Fla.) and Georgetown.
"What impressed me most with Ben early on was his motor," Providence coach Ed Cooley said. "He has a high motor, and I always thought he had great feet. He had a niche, we just had to hone his energy and his skill set."
In that first year, Bentil was fine. The six points and four rebounds per game were solid, and he really came on at the end of the year. He scored at least 12 points in six of his final 12 games, and grabbed double-digit rebounds in five of them. He took that momentum into the offseason, where those aforementioned questions about who would support Dunn were apparent from the start.
"Coach always says opportunity comes and you've got to take advantage of it," Bentil said. "Coming into the season, I knew I just had to do everything possible to make myself able to step into a bigger role."
The work that he put in was two-fold. If you ask Bentil, he'll tell you that more than anything, he worked on his defense last summer. Providence runs a switch-heavy defensive scheme in pick-and-rolls, and with the new rules Bentil knew that he wanted to be able to guard every position on the floor. Every time Providence ran drills in practice, Bentil asked to be placed on the defensive side so that he could learn better instincts and learn to move his feet.
However, that desire to be able to defend out in space meant that he also needed to get into the best shape of his life. He worked extensively with strength and conditioning coach Ken White, and transformed his body from solid to spectacular. Not only can he move his feet on the perimeter now, but he's so strong that he's basically able to establish deep post position on anyone that he goes against. His hands are stronger now, and he's able to catch basically anything that Dunn throws at him.
The confidence that the Providence staff has shown in him has paid off, and he's repaying them in kind.
"I think Ben is playing with a lot more confidence," Cooley said. "We want him to be a focal point for us. He's emerging. He's worked really hard in the summer time, on his body and on his conditioning. We're really proud of how far he's come in such a short period of time."
Bentil improved beyond the level of being the secondary option next to Dunn on Providence. Rather, he's now just simply one of the best big men in all of college basketball, confident to take a shot wherever he is on the floor, including from beyond the three-point line.
"I've always been able to shoot," Bentil said "I felt like last year we had players and seniors who were good leaders who could shoot and take good shots. So I just had to settle into my role. This year, I'm counted on to shoot the ball. And it's all about confidence. I have the confidence to shoot the ball."
Confidence goes a long way, and it's helped Bentil go from question mark to dominant force quickly. He's put himself on the map not only as a potential All-American, but also as an NBA Draft pick. The size is a question mark, but anybody who can move his feet, stretch the floor, and establish position inside like Bentil can will have a shot to make the league.
Even if that doesn't necessarily work out, Cooley has another idea for where he thinks Bentil, a business student at Providence, could end up.
"I see Ben owning and running a corporation one day," Cooley says. "Just his demeanor. He has a presence about him that I think everybody in the room respects."
Hopefully for both their sakes, that's a long way away. Bentil's emergence has Providence on the verge of something special in college hoops this season.
