Ranking the Most Dynamic Freshmen to Watch in the 2014-15 NCAA Basketball Season

Stanley Johnson will be the most dynamic freshman to watch in the 2014-15 college basketball season, but he certainly won't be the only one filling the highlight reels.

After months and years of anticipation, the 2014 class of recruits is about to start actually playing regular-season college basketball.

Perhaps most exciting of all: We'll finally have new pictures to use of these freshmen phenoms! It'll be nice to see guys like Jahlil Okafor in anything other than the four poses we've all been using all summer.

In ranking what we anticipate to be the most dynamic freshmen this season, we were looking for more than just who will be the best. Rather, which players have both the skills and the opportunity to wow us the most?

We included a couple of players from slightly off the beaten path, but it's no surprise that these are mostly the usual suspects for any top freshmen piece—albeit, perhaps in a different order than you may have come to expect.

We've also provided a projected stat line for each of these 10 freshmen so we can come back in a few months and gawk in wonder at how incredible our prognostication skills were.

10. Malik Pope, San Diego State

Player: Malik Pope, Small Forward

School: San Diego State

Projected Stat Line: 11.9 PPG, 7.4 RPG, 1.7 BPG

Once Malik Pope is fully healthy—he broke the same leg twice and hasn't played competitively in over a year—San Diego State might have the most ridiculous lineup in the entire country.

When he was playing, one of Pope's biggest assets was his versatility. He can handle the ball like a point guard, play on the wing like a shooting guard, rebound like a power forward and run like an Olympic sprinter.

In a lineup that already has a 6'8" point forward in Winston Shepard and a 6'7" phenom-in-the-making in Dwayne Polee II, Pope will give head coach Steve Fisher the opportunity to have an amorphous offensive attack.

With Xavier Thames out of the picture, several players need to step up on offense this season for the Aztecs. Pope could absolutely be one of their studs before the end of the season.

9. Cliff Alexander, Kansas

Player: Cliff Alexander, Power Forward

School: Kansas

Projected Stat Line: 12.7 PPG, 8.6 RPG, 1.4 BPG

"Quick" is not a word that we would use to describe Cliff Alexander, but "athletic"—said with a minimum of four syllables—absolutely fits the bill.

Alexander is all sorts of tough and strong. He has a proverbial nose for rebounds and has the ability to muscle his way into just about any spot on the court that he so desires.

Making this comparison for the umpteenth time, he'll remind Kansas fans of Thomas Robinson while drawing comparisons to Jared Sullinger from others.

Strong and athletic as he is, we're not convinced he's all that dynamic. In fact, teammate Jamari Traylor might be twice as dynamic as Alexander. But there should be no shortage of plays this season on which Alexander blows us away.

8. Isaiah Whitehead, Seton Hall

Player: Isaiah Whitehead, Shooting Guard

School: Seton Hall

Projected Stat Line: 14.7 PPG, 4.5 RPG, 3.1 APG

The big question for Isaiah Whitehead: Can he handle the weight of the world?

The vast majority of 5-star recruits are taking their talents to traditional powerhouses, but Whitehead will be asked to turn things around for a Seton Hall program that has been the definition of average over the past decade.

Both a pro and a con of going this unconventional route is that there's no question he is the most important player on the team. Sterling Gibbs, Jaren Sina and Brandon Mobley will do what they can, but Whitehead's supporting cast isn't exactly on par with those for the top freshmen at Arizona, Duke and Kentucky.

Toughness, ball-handling and being an aggressive scorer are Whitehead's top three strengths, according to ScoutHoops.com, and he'll need all three of those traits as the player that both the offense and defense will know to be the primary scorer.

7. Myles Turner, Texas

Player: Myles Turner, Center

School: Texas

Projected Stat Line: 15.4 PPG, 6.2 RPG, 2.6 BPG

When players who can nearly reach the rim without jumping also have three-point range, the latter tends to be what we fixate on.

However, Myles Turner is much more than just a 7'0" gimmick.

Yes, he can drain three-pointers. It's an invaluable trait that will help spread the floor and open up more space for Cameron Ridley in the paint.

But Turner is a great scorer from all ranges who just so happens to be an outstanding shot-blocker on the defensive end of the court, as well.

Turner has a nasty jab-step off the dribble that allows him to get free for mid-range buckets. Good luck trying to defend it, though, because if you try to anticipate the step-back jumper, he'll have already elevated to the rim by the time you realize what happened.

Texas was already going to be a good team this season, but the Longhorns could be national-championship good if Turner fulfills expectations.

6. Karl Towns Jr., Kentucky

Player: Karl Towns Jr., Power Forward

School: Kentucky

Projected Stat Line: 14.4 PPG, 7.9 RPG, 2.1 BPG

Really, why not put the giants with three-point range on consecutive slides?

Both Myles Turner and Karl Towns Jr. are exceptionally talented big men who decided to play for schools that already have a few at their disposal.

Towns isn't quite as polished as a guy like Jahlil Okafor, but he oozes potential. The day his feet become as gifted as his hands will be a terrifying one for every other team in the country.

As already mentioned, Towns has exceptional range. His stroke is pure and his turnaround jumper is lethal. And on the defensive end, he could give Willie Cauley-Stein a fierce challenge for the team lead in blocked shots.

How many points, rebounds and blocks he puts up will be heavily dependent on the platoon lineups at Kentucky, but his per-40-minutes numbers in those categories should be among the best in the nation.

5. Chris McCullough, Syracuse

Player: Chris McCullough, Power Forward

School: Syracuse

Projected Stat Line: 16.4 PPG, 8.6 RPG, 1.4 BPG

Technically, someone has to be the least talked-about 5-star freshman in the country, but it sure does seem like Chris McCullough hasn't been getting anywhere near the respect he deserves.

The man is basically a gazelle with pogo sticks for legs.

Read any scouting report on McCullough and you'll find the words "fast" and "quick" with regularity. We raved last season about Andrew Wiggins' second-jump ability, something that McCullough has in spades.

He is still pretty raw and doesn't have a ton of strength for those in-the-trenches situations where speed no longer matters, but he is going to make a lot of "wow" plays this season.

McCullough could be a taller version of Clemson's K.J. McDaniels—an extremely athletic forward who finally seemed to put it all together last year.

4. Rashad Vaughn, UNLV

Player: Rashad Vaughn, Shooting Guard

School: UNLV

Projected Stat Line: 18.6 PPG, 6.5 RPG, 1.8 APG

UNLV is a team in rapid rebuilding mode. The Rebels lost all five of their top scorers from last season and could desperately use an alpha male on the scoreboard.

Good thing they're getting Rashad Vaughn.

Like the aforementioned Isaiah Whitehead, Vaughn is a strong, aggressive scorer. He is an excellent dribbler who's capable of creating his own shot. He's one of the few guards in the game today who really knows how to utilize a spin move to his advantage.

Despite playing in a non-power conference, we'll have plenty of early chances to fall in love with Vaughn's game on a national level. The Rebels play Stanford and possibly Duke in the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic before playing Utah, Arizona and Kansas in a span of 15 days as 2014 bleeds into 2015.

That Arizona game, in particular, will be fun to watch, with Vaughn going head-to-head with the No. 1 player on this list.

3. Jahlil Okafor, Duke

Player: Jahlil Okafor, Center

School: Duke

Projected Stat Line: 17.8 PPG, 9.4 RPG, 1.6 BPG

Here's where we really see the use of "most dynamic" instead of "best" making an impact.

Jahlil Okafor will be the best freshman in the country.

If we ranked freshmen big men on a scale from 1-10 in terms of how physically imposing they are and how polished their game already is, Okafor would probably score higher than any other player in the past decade.

But does that make him dynamic?

Tim Duncan might be the best power forward in NBA history, but that doesn't mean he has ever been more dynamic than Anthony Davis is now or than Kevin Garnett was in his prime.

Rather than being amazed by the things Okafor does this season, it's almost inevitable that we'll see it through jaded eyes and say things like, "Well, yeah, he should be able to do that. Just look at him."

Either way, get ready for a double-double machine who makes a run at national player of the year.

2. Tyler Ulis, Kentucky

Player: Tyler Ulis, Point Guard

School: Kentucky

Projected Stat Line: 6.4 PPG, 4.8 APG, 0.9 SPG

Aside from Malik Pope, Tyler Ulis' projected stat line is the biggest guessing game of them all, as there's no telling how much playing time he'll actually get.

Ulis could be one of the 10 best point guards in the country, but he's stuck on a depth chart behind one of the top five.

When he is on the court, though, hold onto your butts.

Ulis is about as big as the towel boys who will be wiping up the court after he has defenders falling all over themselves, but he is fearless. He'll have no problem hitting scoop shots and acrobatic layups against and around players who are more than a foot taller than him.

Moreover, his court vision is not human.

UCLA's Kyle Anderson got the nickname "Slow-Mo" by playing at a deliberate pace, but Ulis might deserve that nickname now that Anderson has moved on, because it's almost as if he's seeing the game in slow motion. The precision with which he finds windows—both for passing and driving—is borderline surgical.

Don't expect any rim-rocking dunks from Ulis, but he'll have plenty of "Oh no he didn't" moments reminiscent of "The Professor" in those And1 Mixtapes we all miss so dearly.

1. Stanley Johnson, Arizona

Player: Stanley Johnson, Guard/Forward

School: Arizona

Projected Stat Line: 16.2 PPG, 4.7 RPG, 2.6 APG, 1.8 SPG

Imagine a version of Kemba Walker that could win a slam dunk competition.

For someone who stands 6'7" and weighs about 245 pounds, Stanley Johnson has an absolutely ridiculous step-back crossover move. If you don't respect it on defense, you're going to end up with some tragically broken ankles. If you respect it too much, he'll effortlessly drive right past you for an emphatic dunk.

Long story short, every time the ball is in hands, there's a reasonable expectation that something awesome is about to happen.

Better yet, he's a must-watch on defense, too.

Johnson will be one of the most physical on-ball defenders in the country. That might result in a lot of early foul trouble until he gets a reputation with the referees as a defensive wizard, but that type of attitude and intensity could be infectious on a team that already has one excellent on-ball defender in T.J. McConnell.

It would be a sizable upset if any freshman other than Johnson receives the most nominations for top-10 plays this season.

Kerry Miller covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter: @kerrancejames.