CBB Freshmen We Were Wrong About Early in 2016-17 Season
Despite years of watching grassroots high school hoops and showcase AAU events, there are always freshmen in college basketball who defy the expectations scouts had for them.
For the most part, we'll be talking about underrated players who quickly become one of the go-to guys on their team, like California's Charlie Moore or Texas A&M's Robert Williams. Many of them were 4-star recruits, so they aren't exactly rags to riches stories. Still, they're performing every bit as well as most of the projected lottery picks, which is a pleasant surprise.
At the other end of the spectrum, there are also typically a few 5-star guys who leave us wondering what exactly the scouts saw that was supposedly so impressive. It's still way too early in the season to write anyone off as the next Chris Walker, but we were expecting more out of guys like Texas' Jarrett Allen and Michigan State's Joshua Langford.
These players are not listed in any particular order, but we're guessing these are the guys most college scouts are embarrassed about misjudging.
Michael Weathers, Miami (Ohio)
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Seemingly every year there's at least one freshman who puts up ridiculous numbers for a program that isn't supposed to be able to recruit impact freshmen.
Last season, it was Marcus Evans at Rice, who averaged 21.5 points per game and is currently guiding the Owls to their best start to a season since December 2004. A few years before that, QJ Peterson (VMI), Andrew Rowsey (UNC-Asheville) and James Daniel (Howard) were all lighting up the scoreboard for mid-Atlantic teams that are rarely televised.
Thus far this year, that guy is Michael Weathers at Miami-Ohio.
Weathers was so far below the radar that most recruiting sites didn't even acknowledge his existence. Scout doesn't have a single player listed in Miami's 2016 class. 247Sports lists two guys who haven't touched the court for the RedHawks, but no mention of Weathers. ESPN at least had him listed as an incoming player for Miami, but without a rating or scouting report.
So, color us surprised that this 6'3" first-year guard is averaging 22.5 points, 6.5 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 2.2 steals and 2.0 blocks per game.*
His performance isn't doing much to help the team, which is 3-3 with all three losses coming against teams outside the KenPom Top 200. But on a roster without any seniors worth mentioning, this year is just a test run before a push for the MAC title in 2017-18.
Bonus consideration for Weathers on behalf of every college basketball fan missing Buddy Hield. Not only does Weathers wear No. 24, he also gave a very "Buddy the Elf" type of answer to a question in Miami's get to know your players video series.
"What people don't know about me? I just smile a lot. I just like to smile. Even when I'm getting yelled at on the court, I just keep a smile on my face."
*Stats do not include Wednesday night's game against Grambling State. Given the quality of opponent, though, those numbers might even get better.
Robert Williams, Texas A&M
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Robert Williams wasn't exactly an under-the-radar prospect. He was No. 46 in Scout's ranking of the top 100 players and was always expected to be Texas A&M's primary frontcourt reserve.
But once you get beyond the 5-star recruits, no one outside of that team's fanbase really cares. Case in point: Of the 13 freshmen selected in the first round of the 2015 NBA draft, 12 were rated in the Top 18 by Scout, and the one exception (Devin Booker) was the highest-rated 4-star recruit in that class.
Sure, there were plenty of exciting 4-star guys in that year's class. Among those ranked within a few spots of where Williams fell in this year's crop, there were Robert Johnson, Chinanu Onuaku, Angel Delgado and Ja'Quan Newton.
However, that type of ranking is typically reserved for guys who will make a moderate impact as freshmen before sitting atop the list of "breakout sophomore candidates," so we usually don't hear that much about them before their careers begin.
But it didn't take long at all for Williams to go from afterthought to potential superstar.
Per 40 minutes, the big man is averaging 21.7 points, 12.1 rebounds, 5.5 blocks and 2.8 assists. Draft experts are already channeling their inner Jay Bilas by raving about his reported 7'5" wingspan and cannot stop drooling over his athleticism and bounce.
Long story short, when he's in the game, your eyes are drawn to him. This was true even in the Wooden Legacy championship game against UCLA, which was supposed to be a day for NBA scouts to evaluate Lonzo Ball. While the Bruins point guard was sensational, Williams was the freshman everyone was talking about.
According to a status report on Williams Sam Vecenie wrote for Sporting News, "Given initial feedback from NBA scouts that have seen him already, be it in Southern California or in College Station, it seems likely Williams will be a first-round prospect by the end of his freshman year."
Here's hoping Texas A&M gets its point guard situation figured out, because the Williams and Tyler Davis frontcourt combo deserves to spend the bulk of this season in the AP Top 25 before making some noise in the NCAA tournament.
Myles Powell, Seton Hall
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Similar to Robert Williams at Texas A&M, Seton Hall's Myles Powell was a 4-star recruit, expected to serve as a key reserve for a team searching for a second consecutive trip to the NCAA tournament as a single-digit seed.
But with Kansas State transfer Jevon Thomas not eligible to join the team until late December, Powell has been thrust into a bigger role than initially expected.
He has responded beautifully.
Powell is still coming off the bench behind Khadeen Carrington, Desi Rodriguez and Wake Forest transfer Madison Jones, but he's third on the team in scoring at 13.2 points per game. On a per-40 minutes basis, he's second to only Carrington, averaging 23.6 points and shooting 36.1 percent from three-point range and 94.7 percent from the free-throw line.
We'd love to see him start contributing in other areas—he has a combined total of just 7.5 rebounds, assists, steals and blocks per 40 minutes—but players who score like this can provide plenty of value with their points.
Powell was a monster in Seton Hall's key road win over Iowa, scoring 26 points on just 14 field-goal attempts. Late in that game, he single-handedly pushed the Pirates lead to an insurmountable margin. After the Hawkeyes cut the deficit to five, Powell scored eight points in the span of four possessions to put the game out of reach.
Don't be surprised if he's in the starting lineup for Seton Hall's next game. Jones played 26 minutes per game in the Advocare Invitational, but he only averaged 5.0 points and had more turnovers than assists.
Regardless of where Powell starts the game, though, look for him to remain a key contributor. The Pirates are still adjusting to life without Isaiah Whitehead, but Powell is speeding up that transition.
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Jarrett Allen, Texas
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When a highly rated recruit waits a long time to pick a school, expectations for him tend to grow out of control. Once a player who could make a significant impact at the collegiate level, by the time he makes a decision, it's assumed he will immediately become the team's best player and the difference-maker that elevates his new team from the NCAA tournament bubble to Final Four-worthy.
We observed this phenomenon two years ago with Myles Turner and last year with Jamal Murray. As the one 5-star recruit still out there unsigned, it almost felt as though each guy climbed one more spot in the recruiting rankings for every day he remained uncommitted.
Both panned out nicely in the process of becoming one-and-done lottery picks. Thus far, however, it doesn't appear as though Jarrett Allen is quite on that same career arc.
Allen waited until early June to commit to Texas, and it appears we'll be waiting until at least early December to find out whether he's going to emerge as a stud.
Some of his numbers (10.0 PPG, 7.2 RPG, 2.0 fouls per game) look good. Others (2.6 turnovers, 45.5% FT) aren't quite as promising. And even the solid rebounding numbers aren't enough, as the Longhorns are below the national average on both the offensive and defensive glass.
Allen was supposed to be the guy that made Texas a contender. When Shaka Smart signed him, the Longhorns were immediately bumped up to Top 25 status. They inherited the onus of trying to end Kansas' streak of Big 12 championships.
Instead, Allen has merely been adequate for a team that is struggling. While Miles Bridges is doing everything in his power to keep a young Michigan State team from crashing and burning, Texas fans are left wondering when the light is going to come on for their prized recruit to become their MVP.
Anthony Cowan, Maryland
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Maryland was supposed to be all set on guards.
Between Melo Trimble and Jared Nickens returning as juniors and Dion Wiley coming back from an injury that cost him all of last season, there weren't any big question marks in the projected starting backcourt. And if any freshman was going to break into the rotation for major minutes, it figured to be shooting guard Kevin Huerter rather than point guard Anthony Cowan, considering the Terrapins already had Trimble to be the primary ball-handler for 32+ minutes per game.
However, both Huerter and Anthony Cowan have started and played a ton, with the latter emerging as arguably the second-most valuable player on the roster.
Through seven games, Cowan is averaging 10.3 points, 4.6 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 1.4 steals. His three-point stroke (4-of-23) has been nothing special, but he's shooting 52 percent from inside the arc and 76 percent from the free-throw line, where he's averaging a Trimble-like 5.3 attempts per game.
Cowan has played at least 26 minutes in every game against D-I opponents. In the Barclays Center Classic, he had 18 points in the overtime win over Richmond and followed that up with six assists and no turnovers against Kansas State.
Maryland has taken part in quite a few nail-biters already this season, and Cowan was crucial in most of those victories.
Now that Michal Cekovsky is back in the mix after missing the first four games of the season, Maryland's frontcourt is starting to catch up with its backcourt. It has been a painfully inexperienced starting five—three freshmen, a sophomore and Trimble—but this is a team that's only going to get better throughout the season as a result.
Gonzaga's Big Men
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Expectations for Gonzaga were about as high as they have ever been because of the new players joining Mark Few's team. However, the new players everyone was jazzed up about were transfers, not freshmen.
Granted, those transfers have been as good as advertised. Nigel Williams-Goss leads the Zags in points, assists and steals and ranks second in rebounds. Johnathan Williams III got out to a slow start, but he has been a beast in the paint over the past four games. Jordan Mathews took the opposite approach, excelling early before struggling as of late, but we know from three years at California that he can shoot as well as anyone in the country.
But the pleasant surprise that has Gonzaga looking like one of the five or six best teams in the country right now are freshman big men Zach Collins and Killian Tillie.
Collins has been the team's most efficient scorer, averaging 26.7 points and 11.4 rebounds per 40 minutes. He isn't quite the animal on the glass Domantas Sabonis was last year, but the 7-foot freshman is even more of a reliable scorer in the paint, making 72.4 percent of his two-point attempts.
Speaking of last year's stars, Tillie is doing one heck of a Kyle Wiltjer impression, shooting 54.5 percent from three-point range as a 6'10" forward. And unlike most stretch 4s and 5s, Tillie has been Gonzaga's most efficient rebounder, too, narrowly edging out Przemek Karnowski in rebounds per 40 minutes by a 13.7 to 13.5 margin.
However, with Williams and Karnowski blocking their paths to minutes, neither Collins nor Tillie is averaging better than 17.0 minutes per game. It's one heck of a beautiful problem for Gonzaga to have, as they're basically able to platoon their entire frontcourt, but it keeps Collins and Tillie from putting up the type of per-game numbers they deserve.
Keep an eye on their per-40 stats throughout the season, though. This duo is going to be fun to watch for (up to) the next three-plus years.
Michigan State's Guards
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Though frequently inefficient, Miles Bridges has been a ton of fun to watch and is clearly Michigan State's most important player at the moment. And though he has only played 15.6 minutes per game, Nick Ward is averaging 26.9 points and 14.1 rebounds per 40 minutes. Thus, the frontcourt half of MSU's incredible recruiting class has lived up to the hype.
The backcourt? Not so much.
Cassius Winston has emerged as a fine passer, averaging nearly 10 assists per 40 minutes, including seven in Tuesday night's loss to Duke. However, he's only averaging 1.65 assists per turnover and has a grand total of two steals in seven games against teams not named Mississippi Valley State. He's shooting 30.8 percent from three-point range and only 50 percent from inside the arc, and he's only averaging one free-throw attempt per game.
Joshua Langford hasn't been any better. Actually, I've watched roughly 5.5 of Michigan State's eight games and I couldn't pick him out of a crowd. Aside from missing a few WIDE-open three-pointers in the Champions Classic loss to Kentucky, his minutes have been entirely forgettable. He's averaging 11.5 points per 40 minutes, but he isn't doing much else.
Thanks in part to their combined turnovers and inability to force any on defense, the Spartans have one of the worst turnover margins in the country. According to their KenPom box scores, they are minus-49 in turnover margin on the season, or roughly minus-6 per game.
These things happen on young rosters, but the Spartans were expecting more from their stud guards, and sooner. A rough start against their schedule was to be expected, but they desperately need to start playing cleaner basketball.
They do a fine job of scoring when they can actually hang on to the ball, and they have a solid defense for a team recording a steal on just one out of every 25 defensive possessions. But that turnover margin is their undoing. Until Winston and Langford can do more to help in that area, this team will continue to struggle.
Charlie Moore, California
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Once upon a time, California's starting backcourt was going to be Grant Mullens, Jabari Bird and Jordan Mathews with Sam Singer serving as the first guard off the bench. But Mathews transferred to Gonzaga and Bird hasn't played since the first game of the season due to a back injury. In one early game against UC Irvine, the Golden Bears were also without Mullens and Ivan Rabb, forced to throw out a starting five that no one could have possibly projected back in April.
And yet, they won the game in overtime thanks to 38 points from freshman guard Charlie Moore, who has started every game this season.
Since a lackluster debut against South Dakota State (six points on eight shots in 21 minutes), Moore has been arguably the most impressive freshman in the Pac-12.
No, we didn't forget about Lonzo Ball or Markelle Fultz. That's just how good Moore has been while holding down the fort at least until Bird returns.
He has averaged 23.8 points over his last four* games while shooting 52.6 percent from three-point range. He also has also averaged 3.0 assists and 2.0 steals and is shooting 91.2 percent from the charity stripe.
One big thing worth noting is that Cal has only averaged 69.5 points per game as an entire team during that stretch. So, without even factoring in the points from his assists, Moore is responsible for more than 34 percent of the team's scoring. That type of production has made him the KenPom MVP in Cal's last three wins.
Also worth noting, Rabb—a consensus projected 2017 lottery pick—has recorded a double-double in each of his three games this season, but Moore has been the more valuable player in each of California's wins. You might have thought he would be a key player, but no one could have guessed he would be this important.
*Stats do not include Wednesday night's game against Louisiana Tech.
Josh Okogie, Georgia Tech
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It's going to be a long year for Georgia Tech. The Yellow Jackets lost all four of last year's leading scorers and changed head coaches. To go through that type of transition while playing in the best and deepest conference in the nation is one heck of a death knell. And they haven't helped themselves in non-conference play with losses to Ohio and Penn State already on the docket.
But one bright spot has been 3-star freshman Josh Okogie.
Georgia Tech desperately needed someone to step up and become a go-to shooter after losing so many key players, and Okogie has not shied away from the opportunity. He is averaging nearly 15 field-goal attempts per game and scoring 18.0 points per game in the process. He's also averaging 5.2 rebounds, 1.7 assists and a combined 1.8 blocks and steals.
In Saturday's win over Tulane, Okogie scored 38 of GT's 82 points, including shooting 13-of-18 from the free-throw line. In fact, he's averaging more than 10 free-throw attempts and 22.5 points per game in Georgia Tech's four wins.
Plain and simple, the Yellow Jackets are at their best when he is driving to contact and making things happen.
Fellow freshman Justin Moore and veteran leader Quinton Stephens haven't been anywhere near as effective thus far, but if and when those guys show up, Okogie might be able to lead Georgia Tech to a surprising upset or two in ACC play.
Stats are courtesy of KenPom.com and Sports-Reference.com. Recruiting information is courtesy of Scout.
Kerry Miller covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @kerrancejames.
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