Ranking the Best Backcourt Duos in College Basketball in 2016-17
It all starts in the backcourt, or it doesn't ever get started.
Guard play is essential to success in college basketball, since that's where possessions begin and from where scoring chances are created. The players who operate on the perimeter are tasked with taking care of the ball, setting up the offense and either finding the open man or creating scoring opportunities for themselves.
Having one good player in the backcourt is great, but it's even better if there are two. And it shouldn't be a surprise that the best duos in the country happen to be on teams who are having the most early success so far in the 2016-17 season.
We've ranked 10 of the best pairs in the game, factoring in their numbers as well as how they feed off each other.
10. Jaylen Adams and Matt Mobley, St. Bonaventure
1 of 10
It's generally not the best strategy to have more than half of a team's scoring come from just two players, but when that means they're averaging 43 points per game between them, it's a little more understandable. Who knows if Jaylen Adams and Matt Mobley will be able to keep up their scoring pace, but for now, the St. Bonaventure juniors are the only teammates in Division I averaging at least 20 points apiece.
The 6'1” Adams is scoring 22.3 points per game while also dishing out 6.1 assists per night for the Bonnies, who are 5-2, with losses to Florida and Little Rock. The 6'3” Mobley is scoring 20.7 per game and contributes 6.6 rebounds and 3.4 assists.
Adams' production was expected after he averaged 17.9 per game as a sophomore, but Mobley has been a pleasant surprise after transferring from Central Connecticut State and sitting out the 2015-16 season.
9. Manu Lecomte and Ishmail Wainright, Baylor
2 of 10
Six Associated Press voters put Baylor at the top of their ballots this week, helping the Bears rise to No. 4 for its second-best ranking in school history. They've had arguably the best collection of wins so far in 2016-17, beating Top 10 teams, including Louisville, Oregon and most recently Xavier, on their way to an 8-0 start.
A much-improved backcourt has keyed this early surge, as Miami (Florida) transfer Manu Lecomte has stepped in and instantly become Baylor's floor leader. The 5'11” junior has paired with 6'5” senior Ishmail Wainright to form the Bears' best set of passers in several years.
Lecomte is averaging 5.1 assists per game while Wainright is dishing out 4.3 per night. That pair combined for 16 assists in a win over Michigan State at Battle 4 Atlantis and 13 in the win over Oregon.
8. Emmett Naar and Joe Rahon, Saint Mary's
3 of 10
Saint Mary's plays at the second-slowest pace in Division I, its 61.6 possessions per 40 minutes only slightly ahead of Virginia's 60.2. The Gaels are also second in offensive rating, scoring 1.284 points per possession in winning its first six games by an average of 17.5 points.
How does Saint Mary's make so much out of so little? By having two guards who spread the ball around so well that more than 68 percent of the team's field goals are assisted.
Emmett Naar, a 6'1” junior, and 6'2” senior Joe Rahon have combined for 13.9 assists per game so far. That's on top of their collective 17.6 points per game on 47 percent shooting. Neither goes out of their way to score, and they haven't needed to since Saint Mary's has better options in 6'6” forward Calvin Hermanson and 7'0” center Jock Landale. Hermanson is making 52.5 percent of his three-pointers and Landale, with a 76.1 percent field goal rate, is averaging 19.7 points per game.
.png?w=256 "NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Championship")
7. Marcus Foster and Maurice Watson, Creighton
4 of 10
Creighton won 20 games last season but never cracked the Top 25. This year, the Blue Jays have been ranked in every poll, starting at No. 22 and sitting at 10th after an 8-0 start.
What changed? A talented scoring guard went from ineligible because of NCAA transfer rules to being the top scorer on a team that's fifth in the nation at 90.8 points per game, providing one of the best pass-first point guards in the country with a much-needed shooter to dish it out to.
Senior Maurice Watson has increased his assist-per-game total from 6.5 in 2015-16 to 9.0 this season while still scoring 12 per game (down from 14.1). Marcus Foster, a junior who came from Kansas State, is more than making up for Watson's scoring dip by averaging 19.4 points per game.
The 6'3” Foster is shooting 51.8 percent overall and 43.4 percent from three, way up from his sophomore year rates of 38.8 and 34.7 percent. He's benefitting from the floor vision of the 5'10” Watson, who has a 2.32-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio and has two double-doubles and two 13-assist games.
6. Josh Perkins and Nigel Williams-Goss, Gonzaga
5 of 10
Gonzaga rode its horses in the paint to the Sweet 16 last season, getting nearly half its scoring from forwards Domantas Sabonis and Kyle Wiltjer. This time around, the Bulldogs have turned to the backcourt, where among their bevy of guards are a pair who are making the possibility of the program's first Final Four bid looking pretty good.
Josh Perkins (13.1) is the leading scorer on a team that has six players averaging at least 9.1 points per game while Nigel Williams-Goss (12.5) is second. Perkins, a 6'3” sophomore, started all 36 games in 2015-16 while Williams-Goss was on the bench sitting out after his transfer from Washington.
Williams-Goss, a 6'3” guard, leads the Bulldogs with 4.6 assists per game while Perkins is providing three dimes per night. They're shooting a combined 46.3 percent overall and 49.2 percent from outside, as well as 85.7 percent from the free-throw line.
Gonzaga has three wins this season by seven or fewer points, and in those games, Perkins and Williams-Goss have combined for 88 points and made 16-of-21 foul shots.
5. Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart, Villanova
6 of 10
Villanova has picked up where it left off in April, when it beat North Carolina for the national title. The Wildcats, who moved to No. 1 in the latest Associated Press Top 25, are 8-0 this season and have won 14 consecutive games since the start of last spring's NCAA tournament.
And just as it was during the title run, Villanova is doing it with stellar guard play.
The Wildcats don't have much size up front, with the majority of the minutes going to guys who are 6'6” or shorter, but they're not lacking in shooters and ball-handlers. Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart are the sparks this season in the backcourt, a sophomore-senior duo who have combined for 28.7 points, 8.8 rebounds and 7.4 assists on 52.9 percent shooting.
The 6'5” Hart and the 6'3” Brunson are two of Villanova's four players shooting better than 40 percent from three-point range. The Wildcats turn the ball over just 10.6 times per game with Hart and Brunson only giving it away 27 times in 488 total minutes.
4. Devonte' Graham and Frank Mason, Kansas
7 of 10
Why settle for one point guard when you can have two? That's something Kansas coach Bill Self has thought to himself quite often the last 13 months since he decided to start both Devonte' Graham and Frank Mason together.
Graham, a 6'2” junior, and Mason, a 5'11” senior, have been alongside each other in the starting lineup for 46 consecutive games since the 2015-16 opener. Last year, they combined to log 65.1 minutes per game, and so far this season, that number has risen to 68 as the Jayhawks continue to break in a younger lineup after the departure of Perry Ellis and Wayne Selden.
Both point guards are entirely capable of running the offense on their own, which happens on occasion when one or the other is on the bench, but Kansas does much better when they're both in there. Each is averaging better than five assists per game—Mason has 43 assists to 42 for Graham—and they've combined to score 32.7 points per game.
Mason has asserted himself as the more aggressive scorer with five 20-point games in 2016-17, including 30 in the season-opening overtime loss to Indiana. Graham is doing most of his scoring from beyond the three-point line, hitting a team-high 19 threes to account for 54.3 percent of his points.
3. Grayson Allen and Luke Kennard, Duke
8 of 10
Two of Duke's highly regarded freshmen frontcourt players made their debut on Sunday against Maine as forward Jayson Tatum had 10 points and eight rebounds while center Marques Bolden contributed seven points and five rebounds. At some point, forward Harry Giles will become available to play, and the Blue Devils will finally have a complete arsenal to work with.
They did pretty darn good without those guys thanks to the play of its backcourt, particularly junior Grayson Allen and sophomore Luke Kennard, who more or less carried the team offensively during its first eight games.
That duo combined for 277 points in that span, each registering a trio of 20-point games. The 6'4” Allen sat out against Maine to nurse a toe injury, but the 6'5” Kennard played and went off for 35 points on 11-of-16 shooting.
As if the scoring wasn't enough, Allen and Kennard are Duke's top assist men at 3.5 and 3.1 per game, respectively. And they're also chipping in more than 12 rebounds per game.
2. Lonzo Ball and Isaac Hamilton, UCLA
9 of 10
UCLA had some pretty talented guards on the roster a year ago, three in fact, but they lacked a certain something that enabled them to play well together. As a result, the Bruins went 15-17 and were only 6-12 in the Pac-12, one of the program's worst league records ever.
That trio is still there, but thanks to the addition of point guard Lonzo Ball, it's like UCLA is a whole new team. The 6'6” point guard has made everyone around him better by being the person who can create and facilitate, to the point we could have used any of the three among seniors Bryce Alford and Isaac Hamilton and sophomore Aaron Holiday as the other half of the Bruins' top duo.
It's the 6'4" Hamilton, though, that gets the nod as UCLA's leading scorer. He's averaging 18.1 points per game on 51.7 percent shooting, making 45.3 percent of his three-pointers, and because of Ball, very rarely has to take a contested shot.
Ball leads the nation in assists per game, at 9.3, dishing out at least 10 in five of UCLA's nine games and no fewer than six in any contest. He's also scoring 14.6 points per game while shooting 55.4 percent overall and 43.5 percent from deep.
1. De'Aaron Fox and Malik Monk, Kentucky
10 of 10
Guards coached by John Calipari can be found all over the NBA, with many of those coming from his current tenure at Kentucky, and he often has two really good ones on his college teams at the same time. De'Aaron Fox and Malik Monk are the latest pair to come down the pike, and their early performance has many wondering where they'd rank among all those who've come before them.
ESPN's Dino Gaudio thinks it's right at the top, and not just among Calipari-coached college players.
"I really think De’Aaron Fox and Malik Monk are the best pair of freshman guards to come into college basketball ever," Gaudio said, per 247Sports' Kevin Flaherty.
Gaudio said this after Fox recorded the second triple-double in school history in Kentucky's 115-69 win over Arizona State in the Bahamas on Nov. 28. The 6'3” Fox had 16 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists while the 6'3” Monk added 23 points.
On the season, they've combined for 35.8 points, 8.2 rebounds and 10.2 assists per game while shooting 46.2 percent from the field. Monk is shooting 39.7 percent from the field while Fox is dishing out 7.8 assists per night.
All statistics courtesy of Sports-Reference.com, unless otherwise noted. All recruiting information courtesy of Scout.com, unless otherwise noted.
Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.
.png?w=480 "NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Championship")
.jpg?w=600 "Colts Release Kenny Moore")
