The Most Disappointing Freshmen in College Basketball in 2014-15

It's not easy being a freshman.

There's a lot to take in, and plenty of adjustments to make. And it's happening on a lot of fronts, all at the same time.

Being a student-athlete opens yet another front. As does being a national-level athlete recruit playing at a national-level program.

So one can sympathize, but only to a point. The young adults in this category, for better or worse, accepted the ticket. Now, they have to take the ride. That means absorbing fair criticism as well as reaping benefits. It's all a part of the circle of life.

I was talking about something. Right, so with the caveat that the freshman adjustment is difficult, here are the most disappointing diaper dandies in college basketball as of right now. Sorry, guys. It gets better, sometimes.

Rankings are based on individual and team performance relative to expectations.

7. Jordan McLaughlin, USC

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This one has little to do directly with play on the court.

In the first half of the season, Jordan McLaughlin was one of the best freshmen in the Pac-12, leading the USC Trojans in scoring (12.1) and assists (4.5) per game, though not with the efficiency one might have wanted (35 percent field-goal shooting).

Any debate over his contributions was rendered moot Thursday, when USC coach Andy Enfield announced that McLaughlin will miss the rest of the season with a shoulder injury. 

No one wants to see that, especially when, as is the case with McLaughlin, the injury has occurred before. Even though it had nothing directly to do with on-court play, the misfortune certainly has to be considered a disappointment for Trojans fans.

6. Kelly Oubre, Kansas

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Kelly Oubre is the second, probably less-egregious end of the one-two punch that is the freshman disappointment contingent over at Kansas.

That was kind of long-winded. But I hope you got the idea. Oubre has been on an upswing of late and is now clearly outperforming his high-profile freshman running mate, Mr. Cliff Alexander (and we'll get to him). 

Oubre now has more points (8.6) and minutes (19.7) per game than Alexander, and despite being a guard, he nearly nets as many rebounds (4.9 for Oubre to 5.3 for Alexander). His court time is moving in the right direction, with 23.8 minutes on average in his last five games compared with a paltry 13.8 for Alexander.

Still, there are enough bad efforts in the bunch to justify the disappointment label. Last Saturday Oubre threw up zero points and zero assists in 19 minutes against TCU. In a February 10 win over Texas Tech, he notched six points on 2-5 FG shooting alongside one assist and two turnovers.

Kansas is still a very good team, but so far it hasn't quite realized the top-five expectations that followed them into the season. Part of that lies with their underperforming young bucks.

5. Tra Holder, Arizona State

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Tra Holder cannot throw a broken oar into Lake Erie from a canoe. That's the bottom line, and that's why he's here.

The Sun Devils sure as heck fire wanted more output from Holder than 6.9 points per game on 33.6 percent shooting from the floor and 29.7 percent from deep. Coaches were hoping they could slide Holder right into the starting rotation to replace early-departing Jahii Carson, but that's just not happening.

To his credit, Holder hasn't been taking as many shots, so that's good. He's focusing instead on his passing, where he has a team-leading 3.4 assists per game, complemented by a 1.4 assist-turnover ratio. It's not enough to bail him out of there, though; those are pretty "meh" numbers, truth be told, especially from 247Sports' No. 18-ranked point guard in the class of 2014.

His defense also lapsed. But maybe now his D is getting on track and possibly leading to a stronger O.

As Holder said recently to The State Press campus newspaper, "Paying more attention to details [on defense] made the offense easier. I know it’s hard to hear it and visualize it, but it really paid off for me just being in the right spots on defense and getting easy buckets in the transition game.”

Holder also has a pretty coach behind him in Herb Sendek. He'll be a good player for ASU. Just not this season, it seems. 

4. Rashad Vaughn, UNLV

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Rashad Vaughn is the UNLV Rebels' leading scorer (17.8) by more than two points per game over his closest competitor. His 4.8 rebounds are tied for third on the squad and his 1.8 assists rank him fourth.

That's not too bad. Until you start to look at the raw materials he needs to produce these works. He can take an almost infinite amount of ball time and condense it down to the output of a bench warmer. It's amazing. He's like a statistical black hole. 

Vaughn is tied with Derrick Marks of Boise State for the most field goals attempted (14.3) per contest in the Mountain West Conference. Marks is averaging two points more per game than Vaughn.

There's more. When combined with 2.2 turnovers each game, Vaughn's assist-to-turnover ratio becomes a less-than-sparkling 0.72, well below the lowest eligible player in D-I ball right now.

Sometimes this approach works for Vaughn, sometimes it doesn't. Just recently he shot 12-of-21 en route to dropping 30 points on Colorado State. Only problem? The Rebels lost the game. Two weeks earlier, the team gutted out a two-point overtime squeaker over Utah State behind 31 from Vaughn. Only this time, he needed 24 shots to get there.

It doesn't help matters that Vaughn was set to be "The Man" for UNLV from day one. The Rebs are 15-13 and nowhere near Big Dance contention. The sum is a season that's less than its parts.

3. Justin Jackson, North Carolina

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The golden goose of the UNC recruiting class has laid his share of eggs—just regular old eggs, though, not the exciting kind.

On the whole, Justin Jackson's stats look pretty good: The forward averages 9.8 points and 3.8 rebounds per game, with a decent-if-not-spectacular 17.1 player efficiency rating (PER).

But the holes emerge pretty quickly on closer inspection. Check that four-point, one-rebound effort in December against Kentucky or that seven-point, two-rebound performance against the immortal William and Mary, in which Jackson failed to convert any of his four three-point attempts.

And then there was that 1-of-8 FG shooting performance in the Heels' loss to archrival Duke just about a week ago. 

Funnily, after the 6'8" Jackson went without a rebound in a January 14 win over N.C. State, UNC assistant Hubert Davis told Jackson he would have to babysit Davis' children if he grabbed fewer than five rebounds in any single game the rest of the way.

Assuming Davis held him to the deal, Davis made out pretty well. In the 11 games since, Jackson had fewer than five rebounds on four separate occasions. Take it from a dad: That's real money, son.

Jackson's failure to consistently meet his coach's challenge—not to mention the coach's need to issue it in the first place—provide a convenient nutshell for Jackson's inaugural season in Carolina blue.

2. Cliff Alexander, Kansas

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Just when you think he's out, he pulls himself back down. 

There is no question that Cliff Alexander's production has been hampered by his chronic inability to find the light at the end of Bill Self's doghouse. That's mainly the fault of repeated defenses lapses.

To be fair, there is a clear case to be made for using Alexander and his high-percentage offensive game more frequently, especially at this late stage of the season when wins, not learning, should take precedence. 

But as soon as you make that case, Alexander goes and fumbles the ball. In that terrible loss to Kansas State on Tuesday, Alexander failed to score, pulled down only four rebounds and committed one turnover and a whopping four personal fouls in 10 minutes of play.

Exactly one week prior, if it hadn't been for a rebound and a foul, Alexander would have thrown up all zeroes in a one-point defeat to West Virginia.

There are other examples, and they're not trending in the right direction. While Alexander remains a promising talent, it's clear the sun is setting on his freshman season right alongside the Jayhawks' lofty preseason hopes.

1. Kaleb Joseph, Syracuse

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It's been a tough road for Kaleb Joseph.

As the fourth-ranked point guard in the 2014 recruiting class—and stepping in for recent standouts like Tyler Ennis, Michael Carter-Williams and Jonny Flynn—the bar was pretty high for Joseph's first season at Syracuse.

Maybe that bar was a little too high.

Joseph does lead the team with 4.1 assists per contest, but that may be a function of the fact that he's really the only pure point guard in the rotation right now. Folding in his 1.72 assist-to-turnover ratio (good for 177th in the country) and a dismal 9.5 PER, you see you're not looking at someone who's excelling in his new role.

He's had some bright spots, but these comments from head coach Jim Boeheim tell the tale:

"He makes a really good play and then he makes a horrendous play. He makes a really good play and then he makes another horrendous play. That's just what it is. We have to live with it."

Statistics courtesy of College Basketball Reference and ESPN.com and accurate as of February 26.