In this last fleeting moment before actual basketball, let's look at our expectations regarding star players for 2019-20.
This set of rankings will quickly be rendered a moot point by happenings on the court, so it's good to get this down on the record now. After all, last year at this time Zion Williamson was being voted second-team All-ACC.
Just a reminder, these are rankings based on expected college performance, and not a mock draft.
Here are my preseason selections for the top 25 players in college hoops.
1. Cassius Winston, Michigan State Spartans
You can make a case that we were insufficiently impressed by what Winston did last season. Yes, he'd been effective as a sophomore in 2017-18, but that was when he was playing alongside Jaren Jackson and Miles Bridges. Then Winston went out and topped that performance in 2018-19, despite the absence of the injured Josh Langford. It appears that Winston and the Spartans will have to do without Langford for a bit longer. Tom Izzo is fortunate he can call upon a 6-foot-1 senior point guard who takes care of the ball and serves as an accurate volume shooter within an exceedingly accurate attack. As this top-25 list said last season, Winston is prolific, trustworthy and essential.
2. Markus Howard, Marquette Golden Eagles
Here is a complete list of major-conference players who have used as high a percentage of their team's possessions as Howard did for Marquette last season: Trae Young. That's it. So, yes, to watch Howard is to enjoy witnessing the same kind of all-encompassing wave of offense as we were treated to when watching Young or, back in the day, Stephen Curry at Davidson. Any entry on Howard should additionally mention that he scored 53 points in an overtime game at Creighton that his team won by two. Howard may even have a chip on his shoulder: He finished his junior season making just five of his last 23 tries from beyond the arc, and his team lost by 19 in the round of 64 to a No. 12 seed (Murray State). If we're lucky, Howard will play like he still has something to prove. Sit back and enjoy.
3. Cole Anthony, North Carolina Tar Heels
Anthony arrives in Chapel Hill as the latest in a long and illustrious line of lead guards, and the scouting reports suggest he can embrace that challenge and thrive in the spotlight. At 6-3, he carries a reputation for attacking the rim fearlessly and effectively, yet he also kept opponents honest from beyond the arc in his most recent EYBL campaign. Anyway, Roy Williams apparently thinks his freshman is pretty special. At UNC's media day, Anthony (the son of Greg Anthony) became the first Tar Heels freshman in recorded history to be allowed to speak with the media in the preseason. He is currently projected to be a top-five pick in the 2020 draft.
4. Udoka Azubuike, Kansas Jayhawks
If it's possible for a career 74% 2-point shooter on a national title contender to be overlooked, it kind of feels like that's what is happening with respect to Azubuike. He alters the picture dramatically on both sides of the ball for Kansas -- or, at least, he holds the power to do so. In the nine games he played last season before his hand injury, Azubuike was the featured scorer and showed uncanny efficiency. But he struggled to stay on the floor, and the efficiency was lessened by catastrophic shooting at the line. Put it this way: Opponents fear the day when Azubuike decides to brave the ridicule and shoot his free throws underhanded. There is -- how should one put this? -- ample room for improvement over 39%. Fortune rewards the bold.
5. Jordan Nwora, Louisville Cardinals
Nwora's combination of perimeter range and defensive rebounding makes him valuable and versatile. When your team is being picked by many to win the ACC and you, individually, are being named the conference's preseason player of the year, you're not going to sneak up on anyone. Nevertheless, if Nwora's sophomore year is any guide, he and the Cardinals are up to that challenge. His effortless 29-minute domination of Notre Dame in the ACC tournament (24 points, nine defensive boards) certainly felt like it was presaging triumphs still to come.
6. Kaleb Wesson, Ohio State Buckeyes
Ohio State made the 2019 NCAA tournament by the narrowest of margins and upset No. 6-seeded Iowa State before losing by 15 to Houston. The Buckeyes project to have a much less stressful Selection Sunday next March, however, thanks in large part to Wesson. After excelling in efficiency as a freshman and in volume as a sophomore, Wesson could well put all of the above together in 2019-20. To do so, Wesson will have to be on the floor. As a junior, he picked up at least four fouls in 14 of his 32 appearances.
7. Myles Powell, Seton Hall Pirates
Powell suffered through some fairly weak perimeter shooting over the second half of his junior season, and last season's below-average (in Big East play) Seton Hall offense could have used some makes from beyond the arc. Still, imagining this team without Powell is its own kind of abject lesson. Kevin Willard's star is just a complete basketball player. One example plucked fairly at random: Powell had four or more steals in a game last season on seven occasions. At 6-2, he gets to the rim consistently and he's a career 82% shooter at the line. The Pirates need more points this season, and it will be great TV watching a player of Powell's caliber try to deliver them.
8. James Wiseman, Memphis Tigers
The expectation for Wiseman is that he's not "just" your standard one-and-done big man. The 7-1 freshman is billed as possessing traits more commonly attributed by default to smaller types. "Hoops IQ," "nimble," take your pick, the point is that Penny Hardaway's star is making his debut with a loftier-than-average standard, even for a lottery prospect. We've become accustomed to the (mostly) rote translations between high school recruit rankings one season and first-round draft order the next. With Wiseman, however, the thinking is additionally that he can seize the moment and live up to the billing on the floor in the present tense. Wiseman has a shot at being a great college player.
9. Anthony Cowan, Maryland Terrapins
If there's a player on this list whose performance will be more critical to his team than Cowan's, you'd be hard-pressed to find him. A starter at point guard since Day 1 of his career in College Park, Cowan enters his senior season knowing exactly what the Terrapins need to fulfill their potential. Maryland needs chances to score, period. Cowan influences that bottom line not only with the peaks or valleys of his own turnover rate, but also by steering this offense into its most efficient channels. The Terps have shown they can crash the glass and hit their 3s ... they just require parity in scoring opportunities. Sounds like a job for a nationally prominent senior point guard.
10. Tristan Clark, Baylor Bears
Clark is coming off knee surgery, and Scott Drew's already cautioning that his junior likely won't be at full speed in November or possibly even in December. Understood. When Clark is up and running, he's a threat to be Big 12 Player of the Year. At 6-9, he opened Big 12 play last season with 34 points on 13-of-22 shooting against TCU and Iowa State before missing the rest of the year. Even those efforts paled next to his 27 points on a neutral floor against Ole Miss last November. We're yet to see a healthy Clark playing as the seasoned focal point of the Bears offense, but when that happens it could be something special.
11. Anthony Edwards, Georgia Bulldogs
Be advised that Edwards' ranking here probably is lower than his draft slot will be next summer. That's fine, and perhaps he will be elevated in the next iteration of these rankings. For now, however, the NBA has its reasons (Edwards is not only preternaturally talented, he's also younger than any other lottery-track prospect other than LaMelo Ball) and this list has its own (very young players occasionally look like it as freshmen). The 6-5 freshman did have an impressive outing in Georgia's opening exhibition win over a D-II opponent, scoring 18 points on 7-of-11 shooting from the floor. The lion's share of those stats came from the contest's first 23 minutes.
12. Tyrese Haliburton, Iowa State Cyclones
It's possible we haven't seen an ultra-low-possession-usage point guard on a first-round trajectory like Haliburton since Kendall Marshall was at North Carolina a few years back. When talent coincides with infrequent shot attempts, it will be said the player in question needs to score more. Sure enough, it's being said Haliburton needs to score more, and, to be clear, it would be close to impossible to shoot less often than the sophomore did last season. Do bear in mind, however, that ISU scored a robust 1.08 points per trip in Big 12 play last season with Haliburton being Haliburton. If he unleashes an inner Mamba he has been hiding all this time, great. If not, the Cyclones still project to be quite good on offense.
13. Jarron Cumberland, Cincinnati Bearcats
Cumberland is vying to join former SMU star Nic Moore as the only American Athletic Conference standouts to win the league's player of the year award two seasons in a row. True, the conference has only been around since 2013-14, but it would still be a nice feather in the cap. Anyway, if you weren't impressed by Cumberland last season, you weren't paying enough attention. On a team that had just lost Gary Clark (2018 American POY), Jacob Evans and Kyle Washington, Cumberland stepped forward and carried the UC offense to the promised land of "good enough." That plus garden-variety Bearcat D netted the team a No. 7 seed in the NCAA tournament. The senior will give coach John Brannen a running start in his first season at the helm.
14. Kerry Blackshear, Florida Gators
The last time you saw Blackshear, he was single-handedly threatening Duke with elimination in the Sweet 16 thanks to his late-game heroics on Virginia Tech's offensive glass. (Blackshear had 11 offensive boards in that game. The Blue Devils, as a team, had eight.) Now he's at Florida, where Mike White has brought in two consecutive elite recruiting classes to pair with Blackshear, the preseason SEC Player of the Year. Offensive rebounds and 2s are Blackshear's thing, and both at a high volume. The 6-10 senior is also an exceptional distributor from the post.
15. Sam Merrill, Utah State Aggies
Merrill had what for him was a slightly "off" season shooting 3s last year, which must be pretty frightening for opponents, considering he has been named preseason Mountain West Player of the Year. The respect is well-deserved. Merrill takes what opposing defenses give him and, at 6-5, he's perfectly capable of creating his own opportunities. The Aggies may be hard-pressed to repeat last season's 15-3 run through the MWC, but, between Merrill and Neemias Queta, they might still end up claiming the two best players in the league.
16. Tre Jones, Duke Blue Devils
Few players who struggle to make 3s have come in for quite as much grief as Jones, including UCF reportedly shouting "Shoot it!" and "Hell, nah!" during a round of 32 nail-biter last March. No, the sophomore isn't going to blossom into JJ Redick in one season, but, hey, he may do better than the 26% accuracy on 3s he recorded last season. The conversation sure has come a long way from where it was last January, when Jones was injured and it was said (Zion who?) that he truly is Duke's most indispensable player. That may well be correct this season, for no one doubts that Jones is a deft distributor who can get to the rim and who also just happens to play excellent D.
17. Antoine Davis, Detroit Mercy Titans
For a few heady days last November, Davis looked like he might have a go at the record Stephen Curry set at Davidson in 2007-08 for most made 3-pointers in a season (162). After just six games, the freshman had already drained 39 shots from beyond the arc. Instead, it was Wofford's Fletcher Magee who made Curry sweat before falling short. Now Davis is the leading returning 3-point shooter by volume in Division I, as well as being a pretty fair point guard who excels at getting to the line.
18. Tyler Bey, Colorado Buffaloes
Forget forecasting sophomore breakouts -- Bey just had one. Now he projects to loom large in the frontcourt despite a listed height of 6-7. Naturally, players of that size who haven't shown they can make 3s (Bey is 5-of-28 over his first two seasons) will not be spoken of in the same breath as Pac-12 players who are larger and/or who do make 3s. That's fine for pro scouting purposes. Just keep in mind that, in the present tense, Bey's an exceptionally effective college player. Bey is the master of all he surveys on the defensive glass and takes fully 60% of his shots at the rim while carrying a heavy load on offense alongside McKinley Wright.
19. Ayo Dosunmu, Illinois Fighting Illini
It has been a while since an Illinois player needed to affirmatively announce he was passing up a shot at the professional ranks, but Dosunmu surprised some observers when he did just that in April. Granted, the surprise was due more to his potential than being a player who didn't make third-team All-Big Ten last season coming back for another go. (He was named honorable mention.) The time for that potential to be realized is now: Dosunmu has good size (6-5) for a combo guard, and he already has a season under his belt functioning as a co-featured scorer alongside Giorgi Bezhanishvili and Trent Frazier. His perimeter accuracy faded a bit late in his freshman season even as his handle improved, but if Dosunmu puts everything together, Illinois will improve for a third straight season.
20. Kamar Baldwin, Butler Bulldogs
The best indication of Baldwin's motor may be the fact that, as an undersized (6-1), high-volume scoring guard playing in a major conference, he is a career 51% shooter inside the arc. While perimeter success has been hit-and-miss over his three seasons, the senior has always played D and hit his free throws. After missing the NCAA tournament last season, the Bulldogs are a safe bet to improve in 2020. As for Baldwin, he's on track to finish his career as one of Butler's all-time leading scorers and, possibly, in the NCAA tournament, where BU belongs.
21. Desmond Bane, TCU Horned Frogs
No one on this list has been shooting as accurately for as long as Bane, who enters his senior season as a career 43% shooter beyond the arc and 57% inside it. Though it may have escaped your notice in real time, Bane brought those percentages to life in a 30-point outing (on 10-of-15 shooting) against Nebraska in the NIT last March. The Big 12's not going to be a picnic for any team, and an NCAA bid may be a stretch for the Horned Frogs. Nevertheless, Bane can keep TCU in that hunt, particularly if coach Jamie Dixon can find a way to defend the paint this season.
22. Devon Dotson, Kansas Jayhawks
Dotson has already emerged after just one season as one of the best two-way players in the Big 12. Moreover, he ended his freshman campaign on a tear, scoring 78 points and connecting on 59% of his 2s in five neutral-floor games across the Big 12 and NCAA tournaments. His defense is a clear benefit to the Jayhawks, and Dotson's 25-10 double-double in KU's overtime win at TCU in February raised hopes in Lawrence that the string of Big 12 titles might continue after all (even though it did not). The 6-2 sophomore gives every indication that he's about to deliver a commanding 2019-20.
23. Ashton Hagans, Kentucky Wildcats
In just his third collegiate start, Hagans personally ambushed North Carolina and recorded eight steals in Kentucky's 80-72 win last season at the United Center in Chicago. When he's not terrorizing opposing offenses this season, the sophomore will likely be found dishing assists and converting 2s. True, Hagans has turnover issues and perimeter range is a work in progress. (Nor did he fare especially well against Auburn in the Elite Eight.) Still, John Calipari's point guard is a proven distributor who's already quite accomplished at two aspects of the game that young players often need to work on, namely free throws and D. The rest (or enough of the rest) could fall into place pretty soon.
24. Jay Huff, Virginia Cavaliers
Many observers have Mamadi Diakite teed up for "player from defending national champion goes here" individual honors and, well, those observers may be correct. Who knows, we may even see multiple representatives from Tony Bennett's roster the next time we do this list. But for now, we'll go with Huff simply because he's a "great leap forward" waiting to happen. True, the junior will have to rein in his fouling now that he's a necessity and not a carpe diem reserve. Assuming that does indeed take place, it behooves us to keep an eye on a 7-1 rim-defender whose career effective FG% is 68.6, and who used an above-average share of an eventual No. 1 seed's possessions during his (admittedly scarce) sophomore minutes.
25. Jalen Pickett, Siena Saints
Meet your preseason MAAC Player of the Year, as voted on by the league's coaches. Pickett's only a sophomore, yet he sports one of the highest assist rates of any returning player in the country. (We see you, too, Kai Toews.) He also makes his shots from both sides of the arc, forces turnovers and even, at 6-4, blocks an occasional shot. Pickett will carry even more of the load on offense for Siena now that Evan Fisher has graduated.