The recent trend in college basketball has been to build rosters through the transfer portal, adding experienced players who already know the college game and can have an immediate impact.
The movement has been upended this season with a deep, uber-talented class of freshmen who are having massive impacts on programs across the country.
“It’s an anomaly, in the sense that every year there’s a handful of freshmen that make an impact and oftentimes those are the one-and-done guys,” ESPN college basketball analyst and former coach Fran Fraschilla said. “But this, to me, is one of the deepest, if not the deepest freshman class that I can remember in 25 years. It's been impressive that they literally are, in many cases, the best player on some really good top-25 teams.”
College basketball has seen its share of star freshmen, from Carmelo Anthony and Anthony Davis to Zion Williamson and Cooper Flagg.
In most years, the one-and-done headliners are sprinkled around the country, usually at blueblood programs.
Impact freshmen seem to be everywhere this season.
Players like BYU's AJ Dybantsa, Duke’s Cameron Boozer and Kansas guard Darryn Peterson are already their teams' go-to players.
Arizona forward Koa Peat had 30 points, seven rebounds, five assists and three steals against reigning national champion Florida in his college debut. North Carolina big man Caleb Wilson also shined in the spotlight of a marquee game, finishing with 24 points, seven rebounds and four assists in a win against No. 24 Kansas.
Stanford freshman Ebuka Okorie is third nationally with 25.3 points per game. Tennessee's Nate Ament is averaging 20 points and 8.7 rebounds. Guard Kingston Flemings leads No. 2 Houston in scoring at 17.2 points and fellow freshman Chris Cenac Jr. is averaging nearly a double-double.
Providence's Stefan Vaaks, Louisville's Mikel Brown Jr., Michigan State's Cam Ward, Baylor's Tounde Yessoufou, Arkansas' Darius Acuff Jr. and Meleek Thomas, Syracuse’s Kiyan Anthony, Virginia Tech's Neoklis Aydalas, Illinois' David Mirkovic — this season's list of impact freshman goes on and on.
“We're going to put the best players out on the floor no matter what year in school they are,” said Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd, who has already gotten good production from Peat, Brayden Burries, Ivan Kharchenkov and Dwayne Aristode. “We have a great freshman group that we're excited about and they have real maturity and physically they're also ready.”
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, college athletes were awarded an extra year of eligibility, expanding the number of players available in the transfer portal who could fit seamlessly into a roster.
Now that there are only a handful of super seniors left, the transfer pool has essentially shrunk from five classes to four. The transfer portal is still a huge avenue in roster building, but this year's talented freshman class has more than filled the gaps.
For many freshmen, the move from high school to college can be overwhelming, the rush of unfamiliar experiences and the weight of new responsibilities impacting what they can do on the basketball floor.
Most of this year's freshman class doesn't seem to have that problem. If anything, they're embracing front-and-center roles.
An example: North Carolina's Wilson helped create a whiteout against Kansas with a tweet.
“We had a freshman just say, ‘We’re having a whiteout,’ and the whole 22,000 showed up in white,” North Carolina coach Hubert Davis said. “I really believe this: If he ran for student body president, he would win — and he’s only been here three months."
It's certainly helped that a good chunk of this freshman class arrived on campus with college-ready games — and the confidence to go with it.
The feeling-out process that typically comes with first-year players has, for the most part, not been there. These freshmen are soaring and scoring as if they've been in college for three or four years, not three or four months.
“These these guys have played so much basketball against each other, both in high school and on the summer circuit, they’re not fazed by the level of competition they’re facing because they’ve already done it,” Fraschilla said. “But to go into these major arenas and play like they did in a high school gym or at a summer tournament is pretty remarkable.”
There is a downside, at least beyond this season. Because so many of this year's freshmen have played so well so fast, the one-and-done highway to the NBA is going to be crowded.
“Either fortunately or unfortunately this is such a good class we’re going to see so many of them leave after one year there,” Fraschilla said. “But we're enjoying them now.”
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AP Basketball Writer Aaron Beard contributed to this report.
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