Who are college basketball's breakout candidates?
Who are college basketball's breakout candidates?
Here are the 12 players that will be stars by the time the NCAA tournament rolls around.
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If you missed it, we rolled out the most in-depth conference previews that you’ll find anywhere on the internet last week: The ACC, the Big 12, the Big East, the Big Ten, the Pac-12 and the SEC.
This week, we’ll be taking a look at some of the most interesting players and teams around the country. Today, we’ll start with a breakdown of the 12 players that are in line to have breakout seasons, and the five players that are already establish but deserve oh, so much more attention than they are currently getting.
BREAKOUT STARS
JAMES BOUKNIGHT, UConn
I know that there are going to be some people that buck at the idea that Bouknight is going to breakout this season. He averaged 13.0 points and 4.1 boards as a freshman last season. He averaged 15.3 points in the AAC. He averaged 17.1 points in the final 13 games of the season. He was a third-team all-AAC performer.
I mean, the breakout happened.
Didn’t it?
To a point, yes. All the NBA draft nerds on twitter know who Bouknight is. All of the college basketball bloggers know who Bouknight is. He could’ve have won a Senate seat had he been running in Connecticut during this past election. But he’s still a relative unknown amongst the country at-large, and that has as much to do with the fact that the Huskies were a mediocre team in a shitty league a year ago.
Now, they’re likely a better-than-mediocre team in one of the best and most storied conferences in college basketball. There’s a non-zero chance that they end up being a top 15 team in the sport this season. And it’s the expectation surrounding Bouknight that has made people bullish on this team as a whole. So while he’s already a proven talent, I don’t think there is much argument that he will become an actual star as a sophomore.
DREW TIMME, Gonzaga
Filip Petrusev was an All-American for the Zags last season, averaging 17.5 points and 7.9 boards while playing what is arguably the most important position in Mark Few’s offense. He announced that he was leaving school after his sophomore season in a move that was not necessarily something that Gonzaga had planned for, and yet, literally no one moved the Zags out of the top three.
Hell, there are still people that have Gonzaga ranked No. 1 heading into the start of the season.
And the reason for that is Drew Timme. A 6-foot-10, 235 pound center that can score in the post, is a solid passer and has a developing game away from the paint, Timme is the perfect five-man for a Gonzaga offense that is built around pushing the ball, a high-low offense and getting post touches. On a team that has a star-studded backcourt, I think Timme might end up being the leading scorer and rebounder for Gonzaga.
ROCKET WATTS, Michigan State
There is not more Cassius Winston in East Lansing. There is no more Xavier Tillman in East Lansing. That means that there are going to be a lot of shots that need to be accounted for in East Lansing, and I don’t know if there is a player on the Michigan State roster that will be more excited to take said shots that Rocket Watts.
Now, Watts is not Cassius Winston. No one is expecting him to be. There are very different players that happed to play basically the same position. That doesn’t mean Watts isn’t good. While he struggled a bit with his efficiency and his consistency throughout his freshman season, he was a terror over the court of the final two or three weeks of the season. He averaged 17.8 points over the final four games.
Now, it will be tougher as a sophomore when he has defenses geared towards stopping him instead of Winston and Tillman, but it will also put him in more of a playmaking position. The 1.7 assists that he averaged as a freshman won’t cut it this year, and neither will the 28 percent shooting from three. Having A.J. Hoggard and Aaron Henry on board to handle some of the playmaking load will help free up Watts to hunt shots, and that’s a good thing for a program that doesn’t have many shot creators on the roster.
DAVID JOHNSON, Louisville
I’m all aboard the David Johnson bandwagon.
A 6-foot-5 lead guard that is a terrific passer and a plus-defender, Johnson really came on down the stretch of the 2019-20 season after recovering from offseason shoulder surgery. He averaged nine points, four boards and four assists in his final 15 games, including a 19-point, seven-assist outburst in a win at Duke in January. He can make every pass a point guard needs to be able to make. He’s a stud in ball-screens. He would be more or less everything that an NBA team could ever ask for in a lead guard …
… except he can’t shoot.
The question that you need to ask is if those shooting issues were a result of being a bad shooter, or having reconstructive surgery on his shoulder. The answer, truthfully, is probably both, but I’m willing to bet on shooting to come around in most instances. I’ll be doing just that here.
Now, if there is a concern here, it’s that all the buzz coming out of Louisville this offseason has been about Carlik Jones. That might cut into some of Johnson’s counting stats and take some of this time on the ball away. But it doesn’t change the way that I view Johnson as a player.
WILL RICHARDSON, Oregon
There are a couple of options here for players to go with for the Ducks as they try to replace Payton Pritchard. Chris Duarte is definitely someone that is in the mix. He’s the program’s leading returning scorer, and as a 6-foot-8 scorer, Duarte does fit a Dana Altman offense well.
But Richardson is my pick. Remember, this was a guy that, when he was a junior in high school, led the state of Georgia in scoring, beating out Collin Sexton. Altman’s best teams have had score-first lead guards — Tyler Dorsey, Joseph Young — and I think Richardson is going to follow in those footsteps.
SCOTTIE LEWIS, Florida
Lewis is one of the best and most versatile defenders in all of college basketball, but one of the issues that he ran into at Florida last season is that he was stuck playing in a system where Mike White wanted to play more of a halfcourt style. This year, Andrw Nembhard is gone, and there is some reason to believe that it was the slow-and-steady Nembhard that made Florida have to play the way they played.
I do expect a more uptempo style of play from the Gators this year, and that is a style that will suit Lewis, a top ten recruit last season that should be primed for the sophomore bump.
MILES MCBRIDE, West Virginia
McBride burst onto the scene nationally this past season when he went for 21 points as the Mountaineers knocked off then-No. 2 Ohio State. Two weeks later, he followed that up with 22 points in a win over Texas Tech. McBride ended the season averaging 14.0 points in his final three games. He is the one guy on this roster that is going to be a threat to score from anywhere on the floor every time that he has the ball in his hands.
I expect McBride to make a leap as a sophomore, but I also think that it’s important to note that West Virginia needs him to take a leap as a sophomore. This is not a team that has a ton of firepower offensively. They win ugly. They beat you up defensively, and they beat you up on the glass. That’s what they do, and it works, but without a real threat to make things happen in the halfcourt, that can only get you so far.
If McBride is that threat, this is probably a top ten team. I think that he will be.
D.J. JEFFRIES, Memphis
Jeffries had an up-and-down freshman campaign, one that saw him start out the year hot, put up 23 points in a win over Ole Miss and develop into Penny’s most dangerous perimeter weapon offensively. But he was also devastatingly inconsistent. Jeffries had five games where he scored five or fewer points and just three games where he scored more than 15. There is plenty of room to improve.
And I do think that he will.
There are things that we can be critical of with Penny Hardaway as a coach, but player development is not going to be one of those things. I’m bullish on Memphis overall this year. I made this point before the start of last season: The best part of the Memphis recruiting class was not necessarily the two five-stars they landed, it was the fact that there were four or five program guys in that class, a core that Penny would be able to build around. Take that core, add a couple freshmen and a couple transfers every year, and you have something. That’s the model that we see at places like Gonzaga, Baylor and Villanova.
So yes, I think the Tigers will be better this year than they were last year.
And part of the reason for that is I’m expecting Jeffries to take a leap.
CASEY MORSELL, Virginia
If there is one thing that I trust the Virginia program to be able to do, it is develop the players in their program. They may do that better than anyone else, and it’s particularly effective when there is a clear and obvious skill that needs to be developed. We saw Kyle Guy turn into a star with the Wahoos after spending three years becoming a good defender, and I think that this year we’ll see Morsell develop into a very important player with an eight-month offseason to develop his jumper.
Because that is going to be the key for this team.
We know what Kihei Clark and Jay Huff are. We know what Sam Hauser is going to be. Is there enough shooting and talent on the wings to be able to compete at the top of the ACC, to compete for a national title?
What Morsell develops into as a sophomore will play a huge role in that.
CALEB MILLS, Houston
Mills was a redshirt freshman this past season that came off the bench for the Cougars but still managed to lead them in scoring. Now that Nate Hinton is gone, Mills should move into a starting — and starring — role. If there is one thing that Kelvin Sampson knows how to do, it is utilize the weapons on his roster in the best way possible. Mills is his most dangerous weapon. I fully expect him to have a great season, and he’s a major reason why I think Houston is still the team to beat in the AAC.
DEVAN CAMBRIDGE, Auburn
Someone is going to have to score for Auburn.
It’s insane how much this team is losing. Samir Doughty, Isaac Okoro, J’Von McCormick, Austin Wiley, Danjel Purifoy, Anfernee McLemore. All of them are gone.
Cambridge averaged 4.2 points last season, and he is the leading returning scorer. Here’s the wildest part of that: He scored 36 percent of his points in two games last year. He went for 21 in a win over LSU and 26 in a win over South Carolina. So I think that there is a decent chance he could end up being a star for the Tigers this year.
And we all know that Bruce Pearl will need him to be if Auburn is going to get back to the NCAA tournament.
TERRANCE SHANNON, Texas Tech
Shannon is an intriguing talent that fits pretty well into the mold of players with breakout potential: He played just 54 percent of Texas Tech’s minutes last season, but he was their second-highest usage player behind Jahmi’Us Ramsey. A toolsy wing that is something of a late-bloomer, Shannon had some moments as a freshman that piqued the interest of NBA evaluators.
Now, I don’t think this is going to be a Jarrett Culver situation. Culver had on-ball ability. Shannon’s offensive repertoire is something of an unknown at this point. But I do think that he has the talent to have the kind of season where he sneaks into the back-end of the 2021 NBA Draft’s first round.