We continue with this week's featured Big East Basketball Blogger Roundtable, hosted by Pico Dulce at Rumble in the Garden. 

The third question: Who will be this year's surprise player?

We continue the Roundtable series with a look at players who will make the fans ask each other, "where did that come from?"

There's always a player who comes into the season with low expectations. Sometimes it's because they had no hype coming into college (see: Connecticut's Tyler Olander).

Or because he had so much hype that it was impossible for him not to let the fans down (like Marquette'sVander Blue).

Still others have been relegated to a mental trash heap because of inconsistent/ middling performances his first two or three years (Dominic Cheek of Villanova).

One of those players - or others on the list below - and bound to explode on the Big East scene. Will they become great like Kemba Walker and Marshon Brooks? Will Dominic Cheek become Dominant Cheek? Will Vander Blue put on more happy faces? Will these terrible semi-puns end?

 

My answer: Kevin Noreen.

This is almost by default. Unless a light comes on for Deniz Kilicli (and I'm not holding my breath), Noreen, the lone returning sophomore, will have the greatest opportunity to grow into his role. Since his freshman year was cut short due to injury, he has nowhere to go but up. Big and versatile, Noreen should give Huggins a strong option at forward after learning and growing for a year.

I picked Noreen because he's really the only returning player who fits, and because I think he has more talent than what he showed in limited time next year.  Our large incoming class and lack of veterans makes questions like this difficult because I don't know enough about the new guys to make an assessment.  What do you all think?