2024-2025 Men's College Basketball Freshman of the Year Rankings
Welcome to another edition of the quest to identity who will be the first runner-up to Duke's Cooper Flagg for the Wayman Tisdale National Freshman of the Year Award.
Betting lines for this award are nowhere near as readily available as those for the John R. Wooden Award, but it's basically down to Flagg and fifth-year senior Johni Broome for that National Player of the Year honor.
There's definitely an argument still to be made for junior Braden Smith, too, but there are no freshmen aside from Flagg anywhere close to the top five for the Wooden Award, which should tell you that no one is anywhere close to him for Freshman of the Year.
But it's not over. And even if it was, it's our pleasure to bring you these rankings every other week to ensure the first-year phenoms not named Flagg are getting their deserved portion of the spotlight, too.
Contrary to consideration for National Player of the Year trophies like the Wooden Award, one needn't play for a title contender to have a real shot at winning this one. Oklahoma was a No. 10 seed when Trae Young was named the National Freshman of the Year in 2018, and LSU missing the tournament altogether didn't keep Ben Simmons from winning in 2016.
Team success is much more of a potential bonus than a prerequisite, helping the likes of Flagg, Kasparas Jakucionis and Tahaad Pettiford, more so than hurting Rutgers' dynamic duo or guys playing for teams on the bubble.
Statistics are current through the start of play Wednesday, Feb. 5.
Honorable mentions (in alphabetical order): Flory Bidunga, Egor Demin, Jeremiah Fears, Ian Jackson, Kon Knueppel, Khaman Maluach, Liam McNeeley, Labaron Philon, Jayden Quaintance
10. Asa Newell, Georgia
1 of 10
Season Stats: 15.2 PPG, 7.0 RPG, 1.2 SPG, 1.1 BPG, 1.0 APG
Previous Rank: Honorable Mention
Though Georgia is trending in the wrong direction for NCAA tournament purposes, Asa Newell is doing what he can to keep the Dawgs afloat.
He has been "junior-year Perry Ellis"-like with his consistent production, not only averaging 15 points and seven rebounds per game but also delivering seemingly that exact line on a nightly basis. He has scored between 12-18 in 12 of his last 13 games, as well as in all but four games this season. He has also tallied at least five rebounds in 13 straight games, only once going north of 10 boards during that stretch.
Newell has posted an O-Rating of 122 or better in all but four games, but his lone contest north of 152 came in a 51-point blowout of a dreadful Buffalo team.
That consistency is a blessing both for Georgia and for his draft stock, but kind of a curse in conversations like these, where being able to point to specific dominant performances is practically a prerequisite for legitimate consideration.
Going for 16 and 10 in the home loss to Auburn was impressive, as was the season-opening 26 and 11 night against Tennessee Tech. But those pale in comparison to some of the best work by the likes of Cooper Flagg and Ace Bailey.
Newell does finally crack the top 10, though, as he has continued to deliver solid efforts while former top 10 candidates have fallen by the wayside with poorer play over the past month or so.
9. Derik Queen, Maryland
2 of 10
Season Stats: 15.0 PPG, 8.3 RPG, 2.1 APG, 1.2 SPG, 1.0 BPG
Previous Rank: 9
Derik Queen and Asa Newell have similar stat lines this season. But while the latter is a metronome for B-plus performances, the former is more of a scatterplot diagram, recently going through a six-game stretch in which he either scored at least 25 points (twice) or fewer than 10 points (four times).
In one of the two great games in there, it was abundantly clear Terrapins head coach Kevin Willard did not think Illinois (sans Tomislav Ivisic) had any hope of slowing down their post game. And he was right on the money there.
Queen and fellow big man Julian Reese went a combined 22-for-35 on two-point attempts en route to 52 points in a dominant 21-point road win. Queen also had six rebounds, four assists and three steals in that gigantic statement win.
Three days later, though, Queen was held to just seven points as Maryland almost gave the game away against Indiana. And though he went for 12 and 12 in the subsequent home win over Wisconsin, it took him 14 field-goal attempts and eight free-throw attempts to get there.
The ceiling for Queen is clearly quite high. All portions of the box score considered, he just might be providing the most value per minute played among all freshmen not named Cooper Flagg. With each efficiency dud of a game in the past six weeks, though, it has gotten tougher to argue for him as a top-five FOY candidate.
8. Thomas Sorber, Georgetown
3 of 10
Season Stats: 14.8 PPG, 8.6 RPG, 2.5 APG, 2.2 BPG, 1.5 SPG
Previous Rank: 6
Though Georgetown has plummeted out of the at-large conversation altogether with losses in seven of its last nine games, it's not because Thomas Sorber has slowed down at all.
In fact, his most impressive performance of the season came within the past two weeks since our last FOY rankings update, when he racked up 25 points, 15 rebounds, three blocks, two assists and two steals with just one turnover...as Georgetown lost by 10 to a Providence team that is equally not in the at-large mix.
He also went for 19 minutes in the recent home win over Butler, and he scored 17 in the loss at Xavier on Tuesday night.
Ed Cooley might be running his star big man into the ground, logging 185 out of a possible 200 minutes in the past five games since he missed the home loss to DePaul with a minor injury. Sorber played all 40 minutes in the aforementioned Providence and Xavier games.
If Sorber can handle it, though, why not? There has been no sign yet of a drop in marginal utility, and playing him as many minutes as possible is what has at least given the Hoyas a fighting chance in the majority of these recent losses.
7. Dylan Harper, Rutgers
4 of 10
Season Stats: 18.6 PPG, 4.8 RPG, 4.1 APG, 1.1 SPG, 34% 3PT
Previous Rank: 4
We cannot in good faith remove Dylan Harper from the top 10 altogether.
However, his situation has turned into a repeat of what happened last year with USC's Isaiah Collier: Star lead guard on a .500-ish team going nowhere fast was a top-three candidate for Freshman of the Year in early January, but plummeted out of the conversation after a month of limited/no availability.
With Harper, the long-term ceiling is clearly much higher. Collier barely ended up cracking the first round of the draft, while the Rutgers product is still presumably unanimously expected to be a top-five pick in June.
After a scintillating start to the year, though, Harper has missed three of the Scarlet Knights' last nine games, and probably should not have tried to play in four of the others.
Moreover, while he has battled illness and injury, teammate Ace Bailey has been a dynamo, blowing right past Harper to the point where it's barely worth mentioning him for FOY because he's clearly no longer even the top candidate on his own team.
Perhaps, like Collier last year, Harper returns to full strength in early February—his great performance Wednesday in the win over Illinois was one heck of a start—puts on a show and reemerges as a definite top-10, fringe top-3 candidate here. Goodness knows he hasn't been forgotten about and will have plenty more nationally televised games down the stretch.
If he's still healthy for the March 4 showdown with Braden Smith and Purdue, get your popcorn ready.
6. Tahaad Pettiford, Auburn
5 of 10
Season Stats: 11.5 PPG, 2.8 APG, 1.8 RPG, 1.1 SPG, 40% 3PT
Previous Rank: 5
It's a testament to how preposterously loaded this Auburn team is that Tahaad Pettiford shoots over 40 percent from three-point range, averages 22 points, five assists and two steals per 40 minutes...and comes off the bench to play 21 minutes per game.
He did have a torrid time trying to accomplish anything against Tennessee's elite defense two Saturdays ago, logging only 14 minutes and missing all four of his three-point attempts. Even so, he had eight points and three steals in a game that ended 53-51, faring a whole lot better than starting point guard Denver Jones (0-for-8 shooting, two assists, four turnovers and zero steals in 32 minutes).
And that less productive performance came on the heels of one of his best of the season, going for 24 points to carry the Johni Broome-less Tigers to a two-point road win over Georgia.
That game against Tennessee was also the only time in the past 21 games that Pettiford failed to make at least one triple, with his 44 makes on the year only a few behind Miles Kelly for the team lead.
Basically, if you didn't know any better, you'd have no clue Pettiford is the only freshman in a seven-man rotation otherwise consisting of three seniors and three graduate-seniors. He has been so consistently solid for what is arguably the best team in the country.
5. Tre Johnson, Texas
6 of 10
Season Stats: 19.0 PPG, 2.7 RPG, 2.3 APG, 1.0 SPG, 38% 3PT
Previous Rank: 10
Harkening back to the Asa Newell discussion about the need to occasionally go off for a game that everyone is talking about if you want to be taken seriously for any "of the Year" awards, how about what Tre Johnson did two Saturdays ago against Texas A&M?
With 17 minutes left in the second half, the Longhorns were down by 22. But from that point forward, Johnson singlehandedly outscored the Aggies by a margin of 24-18, bringing them all the way back for a one-point win that may well end up being the difference between whether they make or miss the NCAA tournament.
The only thing missing was that he didn't deliver the final blow. He did hit two massive three-pointers down the stretch, but it was Tramon Mark who got the game-winning bucket.
Johnson did almost deliver the game-sealing block, though, contesting Wade Taylor IV's last-second half-court heave, and there's no denying his 30 points were the reason Texas was able to win that one.
It was a career-best performance by Johnson, but far from his only gem. He put up 29 in his collegiate debut against Ohio State, 26 against Tennessee, and 24 in the December showdown with twice-reigning champion Connecticut. But Texas lost all three of those games, squandering his Herculean performances. Nice to see them win one of those for a change.
Before our next update to these rankings in mid-February, Johnson will get back-to-back games against Alabama and Kentucky—marquee matchups with up-tempo teams, the latter of which is having a difficult time stopping anything on defense these days.
He already made one big leap here, but the stage is set for a potential jump to No. 2 or No. 3 two weeks from now.
4. VJ Edgecombe, Baylor
7 of 10
Season Stats: 14.9 PPG, 5.3 RPG, 3.2 APG, 2.3 SPG, 39% 3PT
Previous Rank: Honorable Mention
Who's ready for a little "how the sausage is made" confession?
I contemplated putting VJ Edgecombe as high as No. 8 in the previous update. He had been playing quite well over his last four games, scoring at least 14 points in each and looking again like the budding phenom he was back in November.
But while Nos. 8-10 on what was ultimately the final list were all idle the night before those rankings published, Edgecombe had a game against Kansas State between when that article was submitted and when it was published. Thus, I put him down for an honorable mention, rather than running the risk of feeling the need to make a late-night shuffle if he had a rough game or suffered an injury.
Lo and behold, very much the opposite happened.
Edgecombe went off for a career-high 30 points in a 70-62 victory. It was a performance so impressive that it evidently woke K-State from the dead, as the then 7-11 Wildcats have won four straight games since getting beaten by Edgecombe and basically Edgecombe alone.
By the morning, not having him in the top 10 was a laughable omission. And a week later—after he tallied a combined 49 points, 10 rebounds, eight assists, three blocks and two steals in road games against Utah and BYU—it looked even worse.
Over his final seven games in January, Edgecombe averaged 20.6 points, shooting 21-for-41 (51.2 percent) from three-point range, all but cementing him as a top-five pick in this summer's draft.
Unfortunately, he rolled his ankle in Saturday's win over Kansas and missed Tuesday's loss to Texas Tech. Hopefully it doesn't keep him out for long.
3. Kasparas Jakucionis, Illinois
8 of 10
Season Stats: 15.6 PPG, 5.7 RPG, 5.5 APG, 1.1 SPG, 35% 3PT
Previous Rank: 2
In recent weeks, Kasparas Jakucionis' efficiency in leading this Illinois offense has come crashing back to earth. He entered Wednesday's game against Rutgers with 20 turnovers committed in his last four games, as well as an overall clip of 4-for-26 (15.4 percent) from three-point range in his last five contests.
Granted, fellow freshman Tomislav Ivisic missed three of those games, and the third freshman in this terrific trio, Will Riley, did nothing in two of the games Ivisic missed. That left Jakucionis to try to carry the team by himself at times.
But it was enough to open the door for someone else to climb both to No. 2 in these rankings and to No. 1 in the ridiculously crowded race for Big Ten Freshman of the Year.
KJ is still putting up unreal numbers, though.
Among the five major conferences, he is the only player—freshman or otherwise—averaging at least 15 points, five rebounds and five assists per game this season. And the only major conference players to do it last year were UConn's Tristen Newton (15.1, 6.6 and 6.2) and Seton Hall's Kadary Richmond (15.7, 7.0 and 5.1).
For as much as Cooper Flagg has been hailed as the runaway favorite here, this race isn't over yet—especially considering there's going to be a head-to-head battle at Madison Square Garden on Feb. 22.
2. Ace Bailey, Rutgers
9 of 10
Season Stats: 20.2 PPG, 7.8 RPG, 1.4 BPG, 1.1 SPG, 1.0 APG, 38% 3PT
Previous Rank: 3
Imagine how different this race would look if Rutgers had lived up to the preseason hype as an AP Top 25 team, or if Duke was merely a top-20 team in the nation instead of a top-2 team.
Entering play on Wednesday, Ace Bailey was leading all freshmen in scoring average, remaining slightly ahead of Cooper Flagg.
Just since the beginning of January, Bailey has scored at least 30 points three times, hitting that mark exactly at Penn State, putting up 37 at Northwestern and going for 39 at Indiana.
He has also recorded at least three blocks in four of his last nine games, which is a mark he didn't reach in his first 11 games. And after a grand total of 10 assists in his first 14 games, Bailey has had multiple assists in three of his last six games. He has also been less turnover-prone, his last game with four or more giveaway coming the week before Christmas.
And while Flagg has the likes of Kon Knueppel and Tyrese Proctor keeping opponents from completely selling out to stop him, Bailey has a whole lot of nothing around them these days. Dylan Harper didn't play in the Northwestern or Indiana games in which Bailey flirted with 40. No one else from Rutgers even scored in double figures against the Hoosiers.
This future NBA star is just so good in isolation that it doesn't matter. As long as the other four Scarlet Knights clear out and let him go to work 1-on-1, Bailey can work wonders.
(Whether they'll even finish top 15 in the Big Ten to qualify for the conference tournament, however, remains to be seen.)
1. Cooper Flagg, Duke
10 of 10
Season Stats: 20.0 PPG, 8.0 RPG, 4.2 APG, 1.5 SPG, 1.3 BPG, 35% 3PT
Previous Rank: 1
It was already clear a month ago that in order for this race to get interesting, not only was an Ace Bailey or a Tre Johnson going to need to put up some ridiculous point totals, but Cooper Flagg was also going to need to fade back to the pack at least a little.
To put it lightly, he hasn't faded in the slightest.
Heading into Wednesday's game at Syracuse, Flagg was averaging 24.8 points, 7.1 rebounds and 5.2 assists over his last nine games, shooting 46 percent from three-point range.
That's only the offensive portion of the equation, too. He is also playing some of the most valuable defense in the nation, with Sports Reference rating him No. 3 nationally in Defensive Box Plus/Minus, No. 2 in Defensive Rating and No. 1 in Defensive Win Shares.
The cherry on the sundae came in Saturday's rout of North Carolina. In his first taste of that legendary rivalry, Flagg coolly went for 21 points, eight rebounds, seven assists, three steals and two blocks, falling one point shy of leading the Blue Devils in all five categories.
What else is new, though? For the year, he is now 135 points, 37 rebounds, 25 assists, eight steals and three blocks ahead of his next-best teammate in those categories.
This is maybe the best team in the country, yet Flagg has been essentially an entire AJ Storr season at Kansas (142 points, 46 rebounds, 19 assists, nine steals, three blocks) better than his closest competition.
Absurd.
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