Rivals.com’s college basketball recruiting service ranked Kansas University No. 1 among recruiting classes after Brandon Rush joined the Jayhawks. Eleven games into the season, it’s fair to rank KU’s class of newcomers no better than second : in the Big 12 Conference.
Oklahoma State has received 63 percent of its points from a recruiting class that includes junior-college transfer Mario Boggan (14.3 points per game) and freshmen Torre Johnson (10.9) and Byron Eaton (9.3).
Nationally, the most productive freshman classes have been tearing it up for fourth-ranked Memphis and No. 23 North Carolina. Both schools are proving it’s possible to win big with multiple freshmen playing big roles.
Memphis, a legitimate national-title contender, has had half of its scoring come from freshmen. John Calipari, recruiting well at home and across the country, has relied heavily on Memphis native Shawne Williams (15.8), Chris Douglas-Roberts (10.6) of Detroit and Antonio Anderson (7.8) from Lynn, Mass.
Four of Roy Williams’ top six scorers are freshmen, and the class has accounted for 53 percent of the Tar Heels’ points. North Carolina also had the top-ranked fall signing period.
Three Carolina freshmen – Bobby Frasor (7.1), Marcus Ginyard (9.0) and Tyler Hansbrough (15.8) – are playing more than 25 minutes a game, and a fourth, Danny Green, is averaging nine points a game in 17.1 minutes.
KU has received 44 percent of its scoring from freshmen.
Asked recently to grade the freshman class, KU coach Bill Self said: “I don’t know. Can we drop a test? Is it one of those we’re grading five exams and dropping one? I’d say they’ve been pretty good. The thing I’d say of the grade with the freshmen would be inconsistent. At times, terrific. At times, we’ve not played near as well.”
Rush has been the most consistent from game to game, but inconsistent from half to half. Julian Wright has come on to such an extent of late it wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine him being the team’s best player by season’s end.
“I knew we’d be inconsistent,” Self said. “I didn’t know to what level. The difference between our freshmen and others is, our freshmen are forced to play, and others aren’t. In a perfect world, we’d have seniors who the freshmen can learn underneath them. We’ve been a little more inconsistent than probably what I hoped so far.”
Duke has that luxury, and only Josh McRoberts and Greg Paulus have been getting serious minutes.
Even Memphis, with projected lottery pick Rodney Carney, a senior, and North Carolina, with senior David Noel and junior Reyshawn Terry, have key upperclassmen to turn to when games get wild.
For KU, Micah Downs, the lowest-scoring of the four scholarship freshmen, has outscored the highest-scoring senior, Jeff Hawkins, and Downs didn’t play in two games.
If Chalmers can ride the momentum of his strong game against New Orleans and follow the improvement path of Wright, and Downs can hustle his way out of the coach’s doghouse, the KU freshman class can come closer to meeting the advance billing, but it’s not too early to say Calipari and Williams recruited even better classes than Self.
