Latest Freshman Rankings for the 2014-15 College Basketball Season

Jahlil Okafor is still running away from the field in the race for the 2014-15 college basketball Freshman of the Year award, but the gap isn't nearly as wide as it seemed when Duke was undefeated and destroying everyone in its path.

In addition to big men like Karl-Anthony Towns, Myles Turner and Kevon Looney, Big Jah has plenty of competition from a trio of guards doing their darndest to keep their respective squads in the never-ending search for the second-best team in the Big Ten.

Ranking logic for these freshmen is identical to what has been used to rank the Player of the Year candidates, with the obvious caveat that sophomores, juniors and seniors are excluded.

In lieu of an actual formula, players are ranked by a theoretical and anecdotal "wins above replacement." How much worse would the player's team be if forced to start his backup, and how much better are his team's chances of making a deep tournament run because of him?

Strong per-game and per-40 minutes numbers are a great start and a good way to get noticed, but we're looking for the most valuable players more than the most statistical ones.

Playing for a Final Four contender isn't required to be ranked, but it definitely helps.

Dropped from rankings (previous rank): Tyus Jones (No. 5), Jordan McLaughlin (No. 10)

Honorable Mentions

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Tyus Jones, Duke

The version of Jones that was dominant against Michigan State, Connecticut and Wisconsin has been completely absent thus far in January. He is averaging 5.3 points, 3.3 assists and 1.8 turnovers in ACC play. Everyone is to blame for Duke's recent losses, but Jones has to be the biggest individual scapegoat.

Rashad Vaughn, UNLV

Vaughn is the third-highest scoring freshman in the country, but that's almost entirely because he's attempting more than 14 shots per game for a 10-7 team. Outside of Jahlil Okafor and D'Angelo Russell, Vaughn is the biggest focus for opposing defenses, but it's hard to be too enamored with him until he improves his efficiency.

Jevon Carter, West Virginia

Defense is the lifeblood of college basketball, and no team has proved that quite like West Virginia. The Mountaineers don't shoot well at all, but they're 15-2 because they force more turnovers than any other team in the country.

Carter has been their best on-ball defender, averaging 4.1 steals per 40 minutes. But he's becoming more than just a defensive nuisance. Since the start of Big 12 play, he has averaged 9.5 points, 4.5 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 3.5 steals per game.

Jordan Bell, Oregon

If we're going to praise the freshman who has been best at forcing turnovers, we're kind of obligated to also praise the one who is blocking the most shots. Bell is fourth in the nation in block percentage and is currently averaging 11.8 rebounds, 10.3 points, 6.4 blocks and 2.6 assists per 40 minutes.

Jakob Poeltl, Utah

Poeltl was an absolute stud for the first month of the season, but he hasn't done much since. He had 24 points, 12 rebounds and five blocks in one game against North Dakota. His high in each of those categories over the past six games is nine points, 10 rebounds and one block.

Isaac Haas, Purdue

Haas is efficient, boasting per-40 numbers that are quite on par with those of Jahlil Okafor. But he hasn't played more than 20 minutes in a game since November and is playing for a team that already has seven losses.

Cliff Alexander, Kansas

We're still keeping an eye on him, but it's worth noting that his numbers per 40 minutes are worse than those of the fairly anonymous freshmen we're about to mention.

Pascal Siakam, New Mexico State

The big man from Cameroon is averaging 12.5 points, 7.4 rebounds and 2.1 blocks per game. Per 40 minutes, his numbers are at least comparable to those of UCLA's Kevon Looney. Too bad NMSU is 9-9 and playing in a terrible conference.

Kentucky's Other Freshmen

We found room for Karl-Anthony Towns in our top five, but Devin Booker, Trey Lyles and Tyler Ulis are all in the conversation. Booker has a better case than the others, but there's no reason to believe the Wildcats couldn't have at least two players finish in the top 10 of the Freshman of the Year vote.

10. Kelly Oubre, Kansas

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By the Numbers: 17.7 MPG, 7.9 PPG, 4.3 RPG, 1.1 SPG, 0.9 APG

Best Game: 23 points, 10 rebounds, one steal vs. Lafayette

Previous Rank: Not Mentioned

If we were to write a book about the start to his college career, it would be titled Kelly Oubre: A Tale of Two Months.

His first seven games were the worst of times for the highly rated freshman. But after a two-game transition period in which he evolved from benchwarmer to valuable sixth man to full-time starter in the blink of an eye, it has been the best of times for Oubre.

First seven games: 58 minutes (8.3 per game), 15 points, 12 rebounds, seven turnovers, one steal

Last seven games: 192 minutes (27.4 per game), 95 points, 48 rebounds, nine turnovers, 14 steals

It's impossible to just ignore the first month of the season, but it's also impossible to deny that he has been one of the best freshmen in the country over this past month.

Oubre probably deserves an honorable mention rather than an actual ranking, but consider this an early vote of confidence that he'll continue to play at least as well as he has been recently.

As ESPN's Myron Medcalf wrote after Kansas' win over Oklahoma State on Tuesday night, "It’s clear Oubre and (Cliff) Alexander are beginning to thrive under Self. If this trajectory continues, the Jayhawks will likely remain atop their Big 12 perch."

If they do, it's almost inevitable that one of those two freshmen will get some strong consideration for Freshman of the Year, regardless of how little they played in November.

9. James Blackmon Jr., Indiana

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By the Numbers: 29.7 MPG, 16.4 PPG, 5.6 RPG, 1.3 APG

Best Game: 26 points, seven rebounds vs. SMU

Previous Rank: 8

Like Kelly Oubre at Kansas, there's a clear line between what James Blackmon Jr. did in his first month for Indiana and what he has done since then.

Unfortunately, he is going in the opposite direction of Oubre.

Through the first week of December, Blackmon was one of the best shooters in the country. He was hitting 54.2 percent of his three-point attempts while averaging 19.5 points per game. The Hoosiers hadn't played any great teams, but Blackmon was carrying them to a 7-1 record in which they averaged 88.4 points per game as a team.

Since then, though, he's shooting 26.9 percent from downtown and scoring 13.6 points per game for a team with a 6-3 record and "just" 75.7 points per game.

Unlike other freshmen who do a handful of things well, it's pretty much points or bust for Blackmon. He does grab a respectable number of defensive rebounds for the undersized Hoosiers, but he hasn't been pitching in with assists or steals to make up for his suddenly cold shooting stroke.

He'll eventually catch fire again. He may end up being the highest-scoring freshman in the country when all is said and done. But we'd love to see him develop some sort of Plan B for when those shots aren't falling.

8. Angel Delgado, Seton Hall

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By the Numbers: 25.6 MPG, 8.9 PPG, 9.1 RPG, 1.4 BPG

Best Game: 13 points, 12 rebounds, two assists, one block vs. St. John's

Previous Rank: Honorable Mention

Sterling Gibbs gets all the Seton Hall love, and rightly so. He has scored at least 20 points in four of the last five games and is shooting an incredible 49.5 percent from three-point range on the season. The Pirates would be hopelessly lost without his scoring.

But they would be equally lost without Angel Delgado's contributions in the paint.

The 6'9" freshman is one of the best rebounders in the country—particularly on the offensive end. According to Sports-Reference.com, Delgado ranks 13th in the nation in offensive rebounding percentage and 15th in total rebounding percentage.

After the loss to Butler on Tuesday night, head coach Kevin Willard told Andrew Garda of NJ.com, "When you play with a guy like him, sometimes you get a little complacent...They expect him to get every rebound."

It might not be great for Seton Hall, but it's high praise for Delgado that he's such a great rebounder that the rest of the team doesn't even bother trying to crash the glass.

Elsewhere in the stat sheet, he isn't a great shooter—a 38.5 free-throw percentage should be enough to defend that point—but he is "shooting" 61.8 percent from the field because his Dennis Rodman-like work ethic puts him in position for plenty of buckets on putbacks and layups.

He's more than capable of blocking the occasional shot too.

Coming into the season, we kind of expected to see a Seton Hall player ranked among the top 10 freshmen. We're just impressed that it's Delgado and not the injured Isaiah Whitehead who is finally representing the Pirates.

7. Stanley Johnson, Arizona

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By the Numbers: 28.3 MPG, 13.9 PPG, 6.6 RPG, 1.7 APG, 1.6 SPG

Best Game: 18 points, nine rebounds, three steals, one block, one assist vs. San Diego State

Previous Rank: 6

So much for the king of consistency.

After nearly two full months of routinely scoring 10 to 18 points and grabbing five to 10 rebounds, Stanley Johnson had the first real dud of his college career in a losing effort at Oregon State on Sunday. He committed two fouls in the first three minutes of the game and never really recovered, finishing the night with seven points and three rebounds.

These things happen, though, and it's actually good for his Freshman of the Year campaign that Arizona has been unable to win when he has struggled the most. As we'll discuss later on Jahlil Okafor's slide, you have to wonder just how valuable a freshman is if his team wins without him doing anything or loses despite his great numbers.

The key for Johnson moving forward will be avoiding fouls and turnovers. There has only been one game this season in which he didn't commit at least two fouls, and he has committed at least three turnovers in seven of Arizona's 16 games.

We know he can score, rebound and defend, but he won't climb back to the top of these rankings until he proves that he can stay on the court for 30-plus minutes without giving away multiple possessions.

6. Kevon Looney, UCLA

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By the Numbers: 32.1 MPG, 13.0 PPG, 10.3 RPG, 1.8 APG, 1.3 BPG, 1.2 SPG

Best Game: 27 points, 19 rebounds, three assists, one block vs. Stanford

Previous Rank: 9

Kevon Looney had been struggling for a couple of weeks. After posting seven double-doubles in the first 10 games of his college career, he had a four-game stretch—all losses for UCLA—without tallying 10 points or 10 rebounds.

The season was less than halfway complete, yet there was reasonable cause to question whether he was hitting the proverbial wall that many freshmen seem to hit toward the end of the season.

But then he exploded for 27 points and 19 rebounds while playing 47 minutes in a double-overtime win over Stanford. If he was hitting the wall, it was apparently just in preparation to bust it down.

After another double-double against USC on Wednesday night, Looney now has nine double-doubles on the season. That's four more than the second-best freshmen in that category—Jahlil Okafor and Angel Delgado each have five.

Now for the big question: Will it matter?

It's not Looney's fault that the Bruins already have seven losses, but you have to go back more than a decade to find the last time that a player won Freshman of the Year while playing for a team that missed the NCAA tournament.

(Eddie Griffin averaged 17.8 points, 10.8 rebounds and 4.4 blocks per game during the 2000-01 season for 16-15 Seton Hall. Two years before that, Quentin Richardson put up 18.9 points and 10.5 rebounds per game in leading DePaul to 11 more wins than the previous year.)

If Looney's double-doubles don't lead to some quality wins in a hurry, we'll have a hard time keeping him in the top 10 down the stretch.

5. Myles Turner, Texas

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By the Numbers: 22.2 MPG, 11.6 PPG, 6.8 RPG, 2.8 BPG, 0.9 APG

Best Game: 26 points, nine rebounds, six blocks, one assist, one steal vs. Lipscomb

Previous Rank: 2

Myles Turner has some gaudy numbers. He's no longer No. 1 in the country in win shares per 40 minutes, according to Sports-Reference.com, but he's still at No. 5 and the only freshman in the top 10.

However, his trend of struggling against quality opponents and thrashing lesser ones has gotten a bit out of control.

He did finally have a good game against a strong team last week, posting 18 points, six rebounds and five blocks in an 11-point loss to Oklahoma State, but that was the first time this season that he had more than nine points against an RPI Top 100 team.

In eight games against that collection of teams, he has yet to record more than eight rebounds, posting averages of 7.5 points, 5.6 rebounds and 2.4 blocks.

But against the scrubs of the college basketball world, Turner has been a golden god. In his other eight games, he has averaged 15.8 points, 8.0 rebounds and 3.3 blocks in just 23.0 minutes.

Before our next update, he will play games against West Virginia, TCU, Kansas and Iowa State. He has more than enough talent to post some crazy stats against Big 12 teams—and he's finally getting the necessary minutes to do so, averaging 27.3 since the start of conference play.

We'll find out over the next two weeks whether he's actually able to do it.

4. Karl-Anthony Towns, Kentucky

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By the Numbers: 20.3 MPG, 8.7 PPG, 6.9 RPG, 2.4 BPG, 1.0 APG

Best Game: 19 points, nine rebounds, four blocks, two assists, one steal vs. Eastern Kentucky

Previous Rank: 7

Probably the most noteworthy omission from the Wooden Award Midseason Top 25 list, Karl-Anthony Towns has bounced back quite nicely from a string of lackluster games in December.

He had 12 points, 10 rebounds and five blocks in Kentucky's demolition of Missouri on Tuesday night as part of the team's renewed focus on getting the big men involved.

In the double-overtime game against Texas A&M, Towns, Willie-Cauley Stein, Dakari Johnson, Trey Lyles and Marcus Lee combined to attempt just 18 shots in 77 possessions. But in just 62 possessions against Missouri, the best frontcourt in the nation had 30 field-goal attempts.

That should be great news for Towns going forward. He has averaged 1.50 points per field-goal attempt this season. He simply needs more shots in order to set the world on fire.

Over his last five games since a total dud against North Carolina, Towns has averaged 15.6 points and 14.2 rebounds per 40 minutes. If his numbers stay that strong and Kentucky remains undefeated, he'll make a spirited run at No. 1.

3. Melo Trimble, Maryland

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By the Numbers: 32.8 MPG, 15.7 PPG, 4.2 RPG, 3.0 APG, 1.4 SPG

Best Game: 31 points, three rebounds, one assist, one steal vs. Arizona State

Previous Rank: 3

Entering play on Wednesday, Melo Trimble was leading the Terrapins in these categories: minutes, points, free-throw attempts, free-throw percentage, three-point field goals, assists and steals.

He has been everything and more for a Maryland team that no one expected to contend for a Big Ten title—let alone a national title. And that was even before the injuries that caused Dez Wells and Evan Smotrycz to miss 15 combined games.

Trimble has at least 11 points in 15 straight games, largely because he has perfected the art of getting to the free-throw line. He attempted at least seven free throws in 10 of those games, including five games with 13 or more freebies.

Even when he isn't shooting well, he finds a way to manufacture points, which is a sign of a true leader. He also routinely contributes in several other categories as a good passer and on-ball defender and as an above-average defensive rebounder for his size.

Best of luck to any team that tries to completely take him out of a game. You might be able to weaken him in one or two areas, but he'll just get stronger in the others.

2. D'Angelo Russell, Ohio State

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By the Numbers: 34.1 MPG, 19.2 PPG, 5.3 APG, 4.8 RPG, 2.0 SPG

Best Game: 32 points, nine rebounds, five assists, one steal vs. Sacred Heart

Previous Rank: 4

The sky is officially the limit for D'Angelo Russell.

We dropped him two spots in the last update because—much like Myles Turner—he was struggling against quality teams.

Russell has scored at least 11 points in 16 consecutive games, but he was averaging significantly less than one point per field-goal attempt against the likes of Louisville, North Carolina and Iowa. He even had another game this past weekend against Indiana in which it took him 15 shots to score 13 points.

Because of that loss to the Hoosiers, the Buckeyes are now 0-4 when Russell scores less than one point per field-goal attempt and are 14-0 when he has a ratio of 1.0 or better.

Not only does that dichotomy drive home just how crucial he is to their success, but the game that he had against Minnesota on January 6 was almost incredible enough to vault him to No. 1.

Russell shot 10-of-12 from the field in scoring 25 of the team's first 37 points. The Buckeyes led by 12 at the half, but Russell scored just two points the rest of the game as Ohio State needed overtime to win what should have been a blowout. 

Jahlil Okafor is more talented and will be a higher draft pick in June, but you can't tell me that there is a freshman in the country who is more important to his team than Russell. If Ohio State somehow wins the Big Ten and earns a No. 4 seed or better in the NCAA tournament, Russell is going to get an awful lot of votes for Freshman of the Year.

1. Jahlil Okafor, Duke

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By the Numbers: 29.6 MPG, 18.9 PPG, 9.4 RPG, 1.6 BPG, 1.2 APG, 0.9 SPG

Best Game: 25 points, 20 rebounds, three blocks, two steals, one assist vs. Elon

Previous Rank: 1

It's only mid-January, but you're probably already getting tired of reading about Jahlil Okafor at the top of every "(Insert noun) of the Year" ranking in the world.

So rather than rave about his overwhelming presence in the paint, his improved ability to get to and convert from the free-throw line or his incredible determination to record three straight double-doubles while facing a double-team nearly every time he touches the ball in ACC play, allow me to explain why I at least balked at the notion of dropping him from the top spot.

When Duke was routinely beating nonconference opponents by double digits and Okafor was dominating everyone in the paint, it was easy to argue that the highest-rated incoming freshman in the country was to thank for the Blue Devils looking much better than they did at the end of last season.

But what about these past two games? Okafor has averaged 19.0 points and 13.5 rebounds in back-to-back losses by double digits to unranked opponents.

How is it that the presumed best player in the country can have games that solid and still do nothing to keep his team from suffering blowouts from inferior teams?

Okafor's offense will never be a point of contention. He has had some unlucky rolls and has been arguably forcing things a little too much and too quickly as of late, but he's still the smoothest big man in the country.

Defense, however, could be what ultimately leads to him receiving a rank other than No. 1. Okafor can defend in the paint, but he and coach Mike Krzyzewski seem to have reached an understanding that the chance of a blocked shot isn't worth the risk of foul trouble.

ACC opponents have taken notice and advantage.

Okafor has basically devolved into a matador in the defensive paint, and Duke's guards aren't exactly world-class when it comes to keeping lead guards in front of them. Miami and North Carolina State shot well from three-point range against Duke, but those teams had just as much ease abusing the Blue Devils in the paint.

Okafor is still our No. 1 freshman, and it isn't all that close. At worst, his odds of being named Freshman of the Year dropped from 99.9 percent to 95 percent as a result of these last two games. But with four road games against Louisville, St. John's, Notre Dame and Virginia coming up in the next 17 days, it's possible that the schneid is only just beginning for Duke and Okafor.

Statistics on the following slides courtesy of KenPom.com (subscription required), NCAA.com, Sports-Reference.com and ESPN.com and are current through the start of play on Thursday, January 15.

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