Ranking the Best Individual Performances in College Basketball in January
To loosely quote M. Gustave from The Grand Budapest Hotel, January marked "the beginning of the end of the end of the beginning" for this college basketball season. It gave us the first dosage of conference play.
Now that we stand on the precipice of February, a prelude to March absurdity, it’s time to take a moment, or several, to reflect on the best individual performances from January.
The flow chart of criteria started by looking at ESPN’s daily leaders. The Worldwide Leader has its own metrics for determining its ranking, but we’ll just leave that proprietary measure alone.
After that, it was a matter of determining the significance of the performance within the context of the schedule and the game at hand. Did it snap a losing streak? Extend a winning streak? Beat Duke once? Beat Duke again? You get the idea.
There were some cats in Division I who went off for 37 points, but it carried little significance beyond that isolated offensive outburst.
With all that said, read on to find out who performed best in January.
10. Stanford's Chasson Randle Against UCLA
1 of 10
The Game: 86-81 loss to UCLA
The Scoreline: 32 PTS, 5 REB
The Impact
All but one on this list comes from guys who led their teams to victories. That one guy is Stanford’s Chasson Randle, who scored 32 in a tough overtime loss to UCLA.
The Cardinal currently sit at 6-2 in Pac-12, good for second place, and they came close to having one less loss the way Randle played against the Bruins.
“It's very disappointing that we weren't able to close out the game," Randle said, according to the Associated Press (via ESPN.com). "Defensively we just didn't get any stops."
No, the Cardinal couldn’t. But since that tough loss, they are 5-1 in the Pac-12 and Randle has averaged 21.33 points per game over that stretch with just one of those six games out of the 20s.
The Cardinal have already lost once to Pac-12 favorite Arizona but will face it again on Mar. 7. Conference honors will, hopefully, be at stake for Stanford.
9. Duke's Jahlil Okafor Against Boston College
2 of 10
The Win: 85-62 vs. Boston College
The Scoreline: 28 PTS, 8 REB, 1 AST, 4 BLK
The Impact
Granted, Boston College isn’t scaling the high fortifications of chateau ACC, but Jahlil Okafor’s performance against the Eagles was no less impressive.
He was dominant on both ends of the floor, and he had one of those efforts that put an exclamation point on the end of any sentence beginning with his name.
Duke’s Tyus Jones told ESPN’s CL Brown, “With how dominant he is, it definitely opens things up for guards and wings on the perimeter. There’s only been one game where he didn’t get doubled. When he’s scoring the way he’s scoring, it just demands a lot of attention.”
Duke gets a revenge game home against Notre Dame and will need better play from its guards. And as Jones said, Okafor gives them the distance and space they need to make plays.
So long as Okafor does his thing, it’s up to the guards to handle Jerian Grant, Justin Anderson and Marcus Paige, who are blocking the road to ACC dominance.
8. Georgia's JJ Frazier Against Mississippi State
3 of 10
The Win: 72-66 over Mississippi State
The Scoreline: 37 PTS, 7 REB, 3 AST
The Impact
Nobody in the SEC is toppling Kentucky. Maybe Kentucky suffers a loss, but will it lose its hold on first place? No, but had you asked Duke that question at the beginning of January, you would have received the same answer.
So everybody in the SEC is fighting for second place, and that’s where the Bulldogs are thanks in part to JJ Frazier’s 37 points against Mississippi State. After staring conference play with back-to-back losses to No. 23 Arkansas and LSU (in double overtime), Georgia, now 5-3 in the SEC, just had its five-game win streak snapped by South Carolina. But it still remains one of the surprise teams in the conference.
"Every time it left my hands I knew it was going in," Frazier said, per the AP (via ESPN.com). "For the most part, I try to get good shots for my teammates. Today, I got open and just knocked shots down. I've never been perfect from the three point line. I'm pretty sure this was the best game of my career so far."
Unfortunately for Georgia, it follows this depressing loss by heading to Kentucky on Feb. 3 for its biggest test.
Kentucky’s guards will have their hands full covering Frazier, so for Georgia to pull that kind of an upset in Lexington, it’ll need some serious help from Marcus Thornton in the frontcourt and Kenny Gaines in the backcourt.
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7. VCU's Treveon Graham Against URI
4 of 10
The Win: 65-60 against Rhode Island
The Scoreline: 26 PTS, 8 REB
The Impact
Treveon Graham proves again and again why he’s his team’s best player. Against the Rams, Graham scored 26 points to keep his team’s win streak alive.
The streak, (now snapped at a dozen games by 5-3 Richmond), had started back against No. 23 Northern Iowa on Dec. 13. VCU has just four losses with two of those coming against No. 2 UVA and then-No. 12 Villanova. That loss to Richmond is a real onion in the ointment.
Getting back to URI, Graham did it on a bummed ankle and really picked up his team.
Graham’s teammate, Briante Weber, told the AP (via ESPN.com):
"We've been together for about 4 1/2 years. Knowing Treveon, he's a tough player. If it wasn't broken I was pretty sure he was coming back. I have belief in him no matter what. I was trying to will my team and keep everybody together. When he came back it definitely lifted up our spirits even more to know that he was going to battle through (an injury). I felt if he could do it why not all 13 of us?
"
That’s leading by example, and that’s why VCU looks to be the favorite to win the A-10.
Down the pipe comes tough games against George Washington and one game at Dayton on Feb. 28 that could determine the top of the league. With Dayton’s Jordan Sibert possibly matching up against Graham, it could make for one of the better matchups at the end of the regular season.
6. UNC's Marcus Paige Against Syracuse
5 of 10
The Win: 93-83 vs. Syracuse
The Scoreline: 22 PTS, 8 AST, 6 REB, 4 STL
The Impact
Marcus Paige ignited a six-game win streak that started on a beautiful scoop layup in the final seconds of a home game against Louisville. Louisville, once down 18 on Jan. 31, surged back and snapped that win streak, but Paige will always have that special night against 'Cuse.
His most emphatic performance for his second-place Tar Heels came against the Orange while raining four threes on the unsuspecting Syracuse defense. Nate Britt added four threes off the bench too.
"I still think the difference was Britt and Paige making the 3s," Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said, according to the AP (via ESPN.com). "We could've lived with the inside play if we had done a little bit better job on the 3-point line."
North Carolina was one of the more enigmatic and underachieving teams of the nonconference flurry. Much of that had to do with the subpar play of Paige.
Looking ahead, UNC has dates at home against No. 2 UVA and two tangos with Duke.
The ACC could hinge on the Feb. 2 game between the Heels and the Cavs. After that, UNC’s greatest threat comes at the hands of Duke—a team that just beat the previously unbeaten Cavs on the road.
5. IONA's AJ English and David Laury Against Niagra
6 of 10
The Win: 80-79 over Niagra
The Scoreline: English's 28 PTS, 7 REB, 5 AST; Laury's 25 PTS, 16 REB
The Impact
It was impossible to split these two up on Jan. 16. The two accounted for 53 of the Gaels’ 80 points in a pivotal matchup in the MAAC. Included in English’s 28 points were a pair of game-winning free throws.
Iona sits atop the MAAC having lost just once to Canisius. Iona already beat Rider in its one game this year. Iona will face Monmouth, third in the MAAC, on Feb. 22 at home in what could be a huge game for the Gaels.
With English and Laury, the two leading scorers in the MAAC, they should prove challenging, but not impossibly so, for Monmouth’s defense.
Monmouth is third in the MAAC in blocked shots and sixth in rebounding offense and could provide a significant hurdle for Iona going forward.
4. Notre Dame's Jerian Grant Against Duke
7 of 10
The Win: 77-73 over Duke
The Scoreline: 23 PTS, 12 AST, 6 REB
The Impact
Notre Dame hit Duke upside its blue head with its third loss in the conference, something nobody saw coming, especially this early in conference play.
And Jerian Grant, a big-time player for the Irish, rose to the occasion and led his team over the favored Blue Devils.
"He loves the moment," Notre Dame coach Mike Brey said, per the AP (via ESPN.com). "He's such a bright-lights, big-stage guy. He is really clutch."
Should anyone find a way to hand UVA two or more losses in the ACC and Notre Dame keeps winning at this clip, Grant will make a case for ACC Player of the Year.
Looking ahead, Notre Dame won’t face Duke again until the ACC tournament. The Irish have a very athletic backcourt and a frontcourt presence that proved to keep pace with Duke’s Okafor, who managed 22 points and 17 boards in the loss.
Adam Rittenberg of ESPN.com wrote:
"But there's one quality Notre Dame has displayed throughout January that could pay off in March, when promising Brey teams typically crack under the brightest lights, on the biggest stages. If the Irish find themselves down big in the NCAA tournament, regardless of the opponent, they will not flinch.
"
And with Grant providing the mighty backbone to this unflinching Notre Dame team, it appears to be a top-four team this year in the ACC, maybe even a top-two team.
3. Kentucky's Aaron Harrison Against Ole Miss
8 of 10
The Win: 89-86 in OT vs. Ole Miss
The Scoreline: 26 PTS, 4 REB, 9-10 from the free-throw line
The Impact
Everybody is gunning for Kentucky. There’s no safe bet on the schedule because they all want to say that they handed Kentucky its first loss.
And it almost happened on back-to-back nights, and it all started with Ole Miss, Kentucky’s first game in SEC conference play.
Aaron Harrison hit a couple clutch free throws in the final minutes and led all scorers with 26 points. It was the kind of effort Kentucky needed in its moment of desperation, with the pressure of an undefeated season squarely on its mind.
"We knew they were going to fight," Aaron Harrison, according to the AP (via ESPN.com). "The SEC is tougher than what people think and we knew they weren't going to lay down. They came out and fought really hard. We had a game where we had to make big plays and we made them."
Kentucky needed a similar effort in its double-overtime win the next game against Texas A&M.
So Harrison’s performance carried with it a sense of momentum, a sense of tone that Kentucky can win these down-to-the-cuticle games (because there will be more) and continue surging.
Kentucky won’t face another ranked opponent until March at this point. Its last game against a ranked opponent was No. 4 Louisville on Dec. 27.
The Wildcats still have two games with Florida and one at LSU that will definitely be a challenge for Harrison and Co.
2. Miami's (FL) Angel Rodriguez Against Duke
9 of 10
The Win: 90-74 over Duke
The Scoreline: 24 PTS, 4 REB, 5 AST, 5 STL
The Impact
Duke rarely loses at home. Not only that, but Duke carried with it a loss to North Carolina State just a few days prior so Duke was hungry to get back in the win column.
Then Miami came to Cameron and thumped Duke by 16 with Angel Rodriguez slashing his way to 24 points.
"We were talking from the moment we started preparing to play Duke ... about the way they play defense and the way we like to play offense," Rodriguez told the AP (via ESPN.com). "We felt like it was a great matchup and they were going to allow us kind of to do what we wanted to do."
The win came amid a stretch of games where the Hurricanes won four of five and now sit at 4-3 in the ACC with wins over Syracuse, Duke and North Carolina State.
Duke won’t have a chance to rinse its mouth clean of that distaste, as that was the only time these two play during the regular season. A rematch could come in the ACC tournament, but there’s a lot of ball to play between now and then.
No matter what, Rodriguez’s play against Duke is one of the best performances of the entire month.
1. Ohio State's D'Angelo Williams Against Northwestern
10 of 10
The Win: 69-67 over Northwestern
The Scoreline: 33 PTS, 6 AST, 7 REB
The Impact
D’Angelo Russell is quickly making a name for himself as a National Freshman of the Year candidate. Many have just handed everything to Duke’s Okafor, but with Duke suffering three losses in January combined with Russell’s ascension, that question is now up for debate.
Take Russell’s lambasting of Northwestern. The win came amid the Buckeyes' losing two of three with losses against Iowa and Indiana.
Russell’s explosion against the Wildcats sparked a three-game win streak and has the Buckeyes sitting at 6-3 in the Big Ten, tied for second, behind only Wisconsin at 7-1.
Ohio State head coach Thad Matta said after the Northwestern game, “Have you ever seen a performance like that from a freshman?”
Russell may just be warming up here as the spotlight gets brighter and hotter.
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