2023-24 Men's College Basketball Freshman of the Year Rankings
It took three months, but there is finally some separation forming near the top of the rankings for 2023-24 National Freshman of the Year in men's college basketball.
Two weeks ago, it felt like any of the 20 players on our list could win this thing.
Now?
It's more like half a dozen, and even that might be generous.
We'll still give you a full top 10, though, as well as a few honorable mentions, because there are quite a few freshmen having fantastic seasons, even though it is getting a bit too late in the season to see them making a spirited push for No. 1.
These freshmen are ranked based on a combination of individual production and team success. However, the team success portion of the equation isn't quite as important as it is when you're talking about National Player of the Year, where you almost have to play for a top-six seed in the NCAA tournament to even be one of the five finalists at the end of the year.
(As we'll discuss in a bit, though, the NFOY does typically come from a top-three seed in the dance.)
One thing that doesn't factor into the rankings is NBA draft stock. It might be mentioned where applicable, but by no means should this be viewed as some kind of draft big board of top freshmen. In fact, possible No. 1 overall pick Isaiah Collier won't even be mentioned after this, as he has been out for nearly a month with a broken hand.
Statistics current through the start of play Wednesday.
Honorable Mentions
1 of 7
Stephon Castle, Connecticut
A knee injury in November set this possible one-and-done star back a bit, but he has played a much bigger role since the beginning of 2024, including a recent pair of 20-point performances against Providence and Seton Hall. He kind of no-showed Tuesday night's win over Butler, but Castle has gotten to the brink of the top 10 in a hurry.
Malik Mack, Harvard
Some lot of good it's doing Harvard at 2-4 in the Ivy League, but Mack just keeps churning out solid efforts, averaging close to 19 points, five assists and four rebounds per game. He had 20 in the loss to Yale and 19 in the loss to Cornell, this after getting on the national radar with 27 in an early loss to Indiana.
Baye Ndongo, Georgia Tech
GT's big man was in our top five in the last update, but he got hurt (head) early against UNC and was not a factor in that massive upset. He subsequently fouled out in a hurry in the loss to NC State, again not playing much of a factor in the game. He's still on our radar, but others are more deserving of the top 10 now.
Dedan Thomas Jr., UNLV
Thomas was our No. 10 freshman two weeks ago, and he has played quite well since then, averaging 14 points and nearly six assists during UNLV's three-game winning streak. He simply got leapfrogged by a few guys from major-conference teams who are all but guaranteed to make the NCAA tournament. As with Ndongo, though, he's still prominently on our radar for future installments of this ranking.
Cody Williams, Colorado
Williams struggled in the recent loss to Washington State (0-of-4 from the field) and did not play in the recent loss to Utah after suffering a minor injury in practice. He's flying up the draft boards in light of how great he looked for much of January, but he has missed too many games (nine) and has been just OK in too many others to land in the top 10.
Nos. 10-6: JT Toppin, Johnny Furphy, Yves Missi, Milan Momcilovic and Jared McCain
2 of 7
10. JT Toppin, New Mexico (Previous Rank: 8)
12.7 PPG, 8.7 RPG, 1.9 BPG, 1.2 SPG
Toppin picked up his eighth double-double Tuesday night in the road win over Wyoming, going for 11 points and 13 rebounds. It was the fourth time in his last seven games that Toppin grabbed at least six offensive boards, as he is making quite the run up the national leaderboard in that department. He also had 15 rebounds and four blocks in the recent loss to Boise State.
9. Johnny Furphy, Kansas (Previous Rank: Not Included)
8.3 PPG, 4.0 RPG, 40.5% 3PT
Feels a bit weird to catapult Furphy into the top 10 fresh off a disappointing performance in the loss to Kansas State. However, the emergence of this "shooting forward" in the month or so prior to that dud sure has made it easier to buy Kansas as a title contender. His year-to-date marks are weak, but he was averaging 15.7 points and 7.5 rebounds in the six games leading up to Monday's loss.
8. Yves Missi, Baylor (Previous Rank: Honorable Mention)
10.5 PPG, 5.8 RPG, 1.7 BPG
Missi has been all over the map this season, including a rough run through mid-January that knocked him out of our previous top 10. But the shot-blocking center has been stout in recent weeks, including going for 17 points and seven rebounds in Tuesday's victory over Texas Tech. Missi also scored a career-high 25 in the triple-overtime loss to TCU and had four blocks in the chaotic win over Iowa State this past weekend. Can't wait to watch him try to hang with Hunter Dickinson at Allen Fieldhouse this Saturday.
7. Milan Momcilovic, Iowa State (Previous Rank: 6)
12.9 PPG, 3.3 RPG, 1.2 APG, 40.4% 3PT
Had the buzzer-beating heave against Baylor counted, Momcilovic maybe moves up into our top three. It would have been his second game-winner against a top-tier opponent, having previously delivered that dagger in the win over Houston. Alas, he got it off just a fraction of a second too late and remains in the back half of our top 10 for his metronomic production, scoring around a dozen points in every game.
6. Jared McCain, Duke (Previous Rank: Honorable Mention)
12.9 PPG, 4.6 RPG, 1.6 APG, 1.1 SPG, 39.8% 3PT
In putting McCain as an honorable mention two weeks ago, I wrote: "He just barely misses the cut as our unofficial No. 11 player, and could make a serious push for No. 1 with a gem at UNC next Saturday." Well, he did have a gem, going for 23 points and 11 rebounds, despite it coming in a losing effort. McCain was also the star of the win over Clemson the previous weekend with 21 points, five rebounds and three steals in that one. We had been waiting for one of those do-it-all performances against a quality opponent, and two in the span of a week has made McCain a strong candidate for Freshman of the Year.
5. Myles Rice, Washington State
3 of 7
Season Stats: 15.7 PPG, 3.7 APG, 2.6 RPG, 1.7 SPG, 33.3% 3PT
Previous Rank: No. 7
Initially, Myles Rice was just an awesome individual story, coming back from Hodgkin's lymphoma and putting up points in bunches for a team that wasn't expected to amount to much. At the end of December, he was averaging 14.2 and 2.8 assists while the Cougars were 9-4 with just the one even remotely noteworthy win over Boise State.
Over the past six weeks, however, Rice has evolved from a feel-good story on a team going nowhere fast to a guy who plausibly could take the NCAA tournament by storm.
Since the beginning of January, he is averaging 17.8 points and 5.0 assists per game, and the Cougars have knocked off Arizona, Utah and Colorado to vault into the projected field.
Rice's magnum opus was the 35-point performance at Stanford, but he has scored in double figures in nine consecutive games with a positive assist-to-turnover ratio in all of them. He scored Washington State's final four points in the 73-70 win over Arizona. And in last weekend's road win over Washington, he had both the overtime-forcing assist and what proved to be the game-winning bucket in overtime.
Sadly, most of Washington State's games have been (and continue to be) on the Pac-12 Network, so only about a dozen people have watched him lately. But set yourself a reminder for two weeks from now. The road games against Arizona (FS1) and Arizona State (ESPN2) will both be widely available to watch.
.png?w=256 "NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Championship")
4. Ja'Kobe Walter, Baylor
4 of 7
Season Stats: 14.2 PPG, 4.5 RPG, 1.7 APG, 1.3 SPG, 34.4% 3PT
Previous Rank: No. 1
Ja'Kobe Walter's reign at No. 1 in our rankings was short-lived, as he appears to have hit the dreaded "February Freshman Wall."
After scoring at least 14 points in 12 of his first 19 games, Walter has been held to single digits in three consecutive contests. Baylor did still win each of those games, but more so in spite of Walter than because of him, shooting a combined 5-of-23 from the field during that stretch.
He did at least hit a pretty big triple late in the win at UCF, and had five points and a blocked shot in the final seven minutes against Texas Tech Tuesday night. Walter also had a combined six steals and six assists in those three contests. He's still making winning plays, even if the shots generally aren't falling as of late.
But for a shooting guard whose primary source of value added is his ability to get buckets, consistently not getting said buckets in recent games—and the team getting along just fine without his bucket-getting—is justification for a slight drop to No. 4.
How much of a factor in the Freshman of the Year race is team success, though?
With the Bears playing their way into the conversation for a No. 2 seed, is their 14 PPG freshman seriously going to finish behind a guy averaging close to 20 per game for a Tulsa team that is just plain not good?
And if it never becomes abundantly clear which freshman is most valuable to Kentucky—which is looking like a No. 6 or No. 7 seed these days—won't it just be easier to vote for Walter?
For what it's worth, 21 of the last 22 USBWA Freshmen of the Year played in the NCAA tournament, with Ben Simmons (who was hyped to no end before he ever stepped foot in Baton Rouge) the lone exception to the rule in 2016.
Moreover, of those 21, 15 played for a No. 3 seed or better. (Including Vernon Carey Jr. when Duke was projected for a No. 3 seed in 2020.)
Walter just might still be the most likely candidate.
3. PJ Haggerty, Tulsa
5 of 7
Season Stats: 19.8 PPG, 4.7 RPG, 3.5 APG, 1.9 SPG
Previous Rank: No. 5
Because of Tulsa's aforementioned complete lack of national relevance—the Golden Hurricane entered Wednesday's game against North Texas at 12-9 overall and No. 171 on KenPom—this is probably the glass ceiling on how high PJ Haggerty can climb in the rankings.
But what a run it has been for one of the best foul-drawing guards in the nation.
Over his last three games, Haggerty has averaged 23 points, 10 free-throw attempts, five rebounds and four assists.
It didn't matter even a little bit in the 102-70 loss at Florida Atlantic, but he made a career-best 10 two-point buckets en route to 25 points in that one.
Harvard's Malik Mack (18.8 PPG) is the only freshman even within shouting distance of Haggerty's scoring average. And Mack missed a few games, leaving Haggerty 62 points ahead of this season's next-highest-scoring freshman, Notre Dame's Markus Burton—whose great individual campaign is also going to waste on a team going nowhere.
The two incredible things about Haggerty's scoring average are A) He averages less than one made three-pointer per game and B) He has yet to score more than 28 in a game.
If he could just once explode for a 40-burger, it would make him a more serious threat.
There hasn't been a 20 PPG freshman in either of the past two seasons. If Haggerty can get over that hump without anyone close behind him, perhaps there's still a chance he wins this thing.
2. Reed Sheppard, Kentucky
6 of 7
Season Stats: 12.0 PPG, 4.3 RPG, 4.2 APG, 2.4 SPG, 53.7% 3PT
Previous Rank: No. 3
We have begged and pleaded for Reed Sheppard to be more selfish; to put that silky smooth three-point stroke to better work.
And for a short while when he had no choice but to be more selfish, he did, and it was wonderful.
During the recent three-game stretch against Arkansas, Florida and Tennessee, Sheppard averaged 18 points on better than 14 shots per game—compared to 8.0 points on 4.6 shots per game in his previous five contests.
But that only happened because DJ Wagner missed two of those three games while Rob Dillingham and Justin Edwards each missed one. And even with both Wagner and Tre Mitchell out for Tuesday's game against Vanderbilt, Sheppard once again disappeared with a meager six points on six shots.
Since he's so comfortable taking a backseat to his more aggressive teammates, it only feels right to keep him just behind Dillingham in this ranking.
Sheppard did have five steals against Vanderbilt, but defense has never been the problem with this star Wildcat. In fact, you could make the case for him as the National Defensive Player of the Year, even while Kentucky as a whole is having one of its worst defensive seasons ever.
We are simply constantly left wanting more out of Sheppard, who is leading the nation in three-point percentage and could clearly average 20 points per game if he wanted to.
1. Rob Dillingham, Kentucky
7 of 7
Season Stats: 15.5 PPG, 4.1 APG, 3.0 RPG, 1.2 SPG, 43.3% 3PT
Previous Rank: No. 2
We've bemoaned in previous installments of these rankings that Rob Dillingham is good for one disastrous performance every few weeks. The combination of the UNC-Wilmington loss, the road game against Florida and the vanishing act against Georgia kept him from landing at No. 1 two weeks ago.
Since then, however, the only "dud" was the game he missed against Arkansas because of a stomach virus—in which, not surprisingly, Kentucky's offense was nauseating, managing just 63 points against a dreadful Razorbacks defense which has otherwise allowed at least 76 points in every SEC game.
After that one-game absence, Dillingham went for 20 against Florida, 20 against Vanderbilt and 35 against Tennessee, shooting a combined 29-for-49 from the field and 13-for-21 from three-point range. He also had 17 assists against four turnovers, still regularly setting up teammates for buckets while getting plenty of his own.
(Why can't Reed Sheppard do that, too???)
It bears mentioning that Dillingham is still only averaging 24.0 minutes per game for the season, coming off the bench for goodness only knows what reason. On a per-40 minutes basis, he is averaging 25.8 points, 6.8 assists, 5.1 rebounds and 2.1 steals, which is ridiculous.
By comparison, John Wall's per-40 numbers were 19.1 points, 7.5 assists, 4.9 rebounds and 2.0 steals.
When Frank Mason won NPOY in 2017, his marks were 23.2, 5.7, 4.6 and 1.4, respectively.
Jalen Brunson's NPOY year? 23.8, 5.8, 3.8 and 1.2, respectively.
Sure, doing that for 32-36 minutes per game is more impressive than 24. Dillingham is afforded the luxury of playing with his hair on fire, resting for a bit and then doing it again. But it is incredible what he is accomplishing.
For the sake of Big Blue Nation's collective sanity, though, here's hoping he doesn't have one of those big duds in the first weekend of the NCAA tournament.
.png?w=480 "NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Championship")
.jpg?w=600 "Colts Release Kenny Moore")
