The Nation’s Best Ever Freshman Class

As teams lined up for Midnight Madness, we heard that this freshman class was special. That they’d be even better than last year’s class, which produced two of the best frosh ever in Greg Oden and Kevin Durant. So great was this group of first-year players, they deserved their own title: best freshman class ever.Four months later, all the hype looks like it was justified. We won’t know the full impact of this year’s freshman class until the NCAA tournament has come and gone. Still, right now, you could argue that the 2007–2008 freshman class may have been … underrated.To gauge the impact of this year’s freshmen, we can start by handicapping the top contenders for the Wooden and Naismith player of the year awards. Last season, Durant swept both trophies, becoming the first freshman to win either one. A few years ago, Durant probably wouldn’t have set foot in Austin, foregoing college ball for the pros. But the NBA’s revised minimum-age rule, enacted in 2005, has steered the country’s top prep players onto campus for at least one season.This season, the combination of the minimum age rule and a bumper crop of graduating high school seniors has fueled a deep class of impact frosh. Kansas State’s Michael Beasley is a prime candidate to make it two straight player of the year honors for freshmen. The versatile forward has helped engineer a huge turnaround for the Wildcats, propelling K-State to one of the top spots in the Big 12, even spearheading the team’s first home win against archrival Kansas in 25 tries. Beasley’s numbers rival or beat those of Tyler Hansbrough, Chris Douglas-Roberts, and other more seasoned candidates. His 25.2 points per game rank fourth in Division-I, first among BCS conference schools.Five other freshmen are on the list of 30 finalists for the Wooden Award. Two of them hail from good-but-not-great teams with tournament aspirations. James Harden has helped Arizona State shed its status as a Pac-10 doormat. The 6-foot-5-inch guard leads the Sun Devils with 18.1 points per game, a figure that ties him for fourth spot in the conference. He’s also second on his team in rebounds and assists, drawing the best defender of opposing teams in every game. USC’s O.J. Mayo has fared even better, ranking second in the Pac-10 at 20.1 ppg. He’s first in minutes played, second in 3-pointers made, seventh in steals, and 10th in free-throw percentage. Mayo’s been the biggest reason the Trojans have re-emerged as a tournament-caliber team, despite the losses of last year’s top scorers Nick Young, Gabe Pruitt, and Lodrick Stewart.For Harden and Mayo, the biggest challenge has been balancing their performance with their teams’ needs. Both freshmen have become the focal point for their teams, putting a big burden on players with limited experience in the college game. The pressure on Mayo figures to grow with Monday’s announcement that sophomore running mate Daniel Hackett has a stress fracture in his lower back. Placing such a heavy burden on a freshman’s shoulders isn’t always an ideal situation.“You hope not to be in that situation, to count on a freshman,” Pittsburgh coach Jamie Dixon said in an interview earlier this season. “But if it evolves and you’ve got the right guys around them, it can be fine. You just don’t want a freshman to be your savior.”Dixon’s Panthers boast a top-notch frosh of their own in bruising forward DeJuan Blair. But Blair is just one of many options on a veteran-laden Pitt team. With point guard Levance Fields expected back soon, the balanced Panthers could become a threat to play deep into March.That’s a common theme among several of the country’s top teams: a freshman good enough to be a one-and-done, NBA-bound player, combined with seasoned, talented teammates capable of coauthoring a Final Four run. Ben Howland has that luxury in Westwood, with veteran stars such as Darren Collison and Josh Shipp teaming with newcomer Kevin Love to form the nucleus of a potential no. 1 NCAA tournament seed. Love ranks second in the Pac-10 in rebounds and field goal percentage. Watch him on a nightly basis and you’ll see a player who rarely takes a bad shot, positions himself perfectly on most possessions, and prides himself on throwing the best outlet pass in America. He’s a 10-year NBA veteran in a freshman’s clothing.Eric Gordon’s arrival at Indiana gave the Hoosiers one of the best 1-2 punches in D-I, with Gordon’s perimeter play complementing the inside game of D.J. White. Consecutive losses to Connecticut and Wisconsin last month left Indiana just outside the top 10 in the polls. But Gordon’s prolific scoring (21.3 ppg, second behind only Beasley among major-conference frosh) and decision-making frame the Hoosiers as one of the toughest outs come tournament time.Perhaps no freshman will be more heavily scrutinized during the next few weeks than Memphis point guard Derrick Rose. All Rose has done is run the show for the only remaining undefeated team in D-I, the no. 1-ranked Tigers. Rose ranks second on the club in points, first in assists, and first in minutes. Memphis coach John Calipari demands a breakneck pace from his players, with a constant pressure defense and a run-at-all-times mentality on offense. Rose has thrived in that environment. Watch him pressure a ball-handler or lead a break and you know he’s an elite point guard. Watch him throw down a follow-up dunk in traffic and you wonder when we last saw a prospect quite like him.Still, the best measure of the strength of this freshman class might be how tough it is to name all the great first-year talents at once. Duke wouldn’t be the no. 2 in the country without the contributions of Kyle Singler, Nolan Smith, and Taylor King. Ditto no. 9 Butler, which has found a perfect complement to A.J. Graves and Mike Green in Matt Howard. Austin Freeman is the lowest-scoring of Georgetown’s five starters, but he’s also taken over for the Hoyas at various points of the season, and projects as a future star. Aussie phenoms Vanderbilt forward A.J. Ogilvy and St. Mary’s point guard Patrick Mills have brought new dimensions to their top-25 teams. Florida lost its top six players from its two-time national championship team, only to build another tournament contender thanks to frosh Nick Calathes, Jai Lucas, and Chandler Parsons.If this were the Oscars, now’s the time when we’d be apologizing for the many, many people that we missed.Mr. Keri (jonahkeri@gmail.com) is a writer for ESPN.com’s Page 2.

The Nation’s Best Ever Freshman Class

The Nation’s Best Ever Freshman Class

More from the New York Sun

Cézanne, Modigliani, and Soutine: Parisian Rebels Who Made Art Modern Reunite at Brooklyn Museum

Escalating Protests, Security Concerns Overshadow NFL’s Paris Debut

Ukraine Reports Restored Access to Starlink Amid Contradictory Accounts of Who Ordered the Slowdown

Two Ex-FBI Officials Face Charges of Lying to Congress Over Hunter Biden Probe

The College Degree Is Less a Must and More a Financial Calculation

Moscow Declares Plague Lab Death Case ‘Closed’ — but Nobody Is Saying What Killed Darya Shipilova

A Michigan Man Sat in Jail 10 Days Before Feds Revealed He Was an Alleged Saddam Spy

Ozempic-Style Drugs for 8-Year-Olds? Prescriptions to Young Kids Explode 310-Fold

More from the New York Sun

Cézanne, Modigliani, and Soutine: Parisian Rebels Who Made Art Modern Reunite at Brooklyn Museum

Escalating Protests, Security Concerns Overshadow NFL’s Paris Debut

Ukraine Reports Restored Access to Starlink Amid Contradictory Accounts of Who Ordered the Slowdown

Two Ex-FBI Officials Face Charges of Lying to Congress Over Hunter Biden Probe

The College Degree Is Less a Must and More a Financial Calculation

Moscow Declares Plague Lab Death Case ‘Closed’ — but Nobody Is Saying What Killed Darya Shipilova

A Michigan Man Sat in Jail 10 Days Before Feds Revealed He Was an Alleged Saddam Spy

Ozempic-Style Drugs for 8-Year-Olds? Prescriptions to Young Kids Explode 310-Fold