Times have changed since the preseason. The last time we ranked the top 25 players in college basketball, we thought Michigan State might stick at No. 1 for a good long while, Florida would be a fixture in the top 25 all season and Virginia would be great on defense but would struggle to make shots.
Fine, we were spot-on with that last bit. The point is, the presence of actual basketball games changes our evaluations of teams and players dramatically. It's therefore high time that we update our rankings of the game's top 25 players.
Just a reminder, these are rankings based on college performance, and not a mock draft.
Here are the top 25 players of 2019-20 so far:
1. Markus Howard, Marquette Golden Eagles
Thank you, Markus Howard, for giving us a fascinating controlled experiment on how NBA potential or its perceived lack can influence our perception of college performance. For instance, Howard is a 20-year-old senior listed at 5-foot-11. The next level, understandably, would prefer to risk a first-round pick on someone 18 months younger and five or more inches taller. So be it, yet here is Howard having a college season for the ages. He scored 40 or more points twice in his first six games, and, despite the new 3-point line, his accuracy from beyond the arc has gone up since last season. Howard can perhaps be usefully thumbnailed with a couple recent Oklahoma greats. Steve Wojciechowski's star is carrying a Trae Young-level workload while making a Buddy Hield-level share of his 3s. It's an amazing sight, even if no "how will it translate to the next level" talk ensues.
2. Jordan Nwora, Louisville Cardinals
The Louisville offense is more sharply bifurcated between featured heroes and role players than we're used to seeing from recent national title contenders (we were told the Villanova-Virginia-brand versatile swarm was the future), and that makes what Nwora is doing all the more impressive. The 6-7 junior carries a higher number for possession usage than most major-conference players not named either "Markus Howard" or "Myles Powell," yet he's making his shots from both sides of the arc and has been virtually automatic at the line. As a team, the Cardinals' shooting has been superb (it was even more superb before the Texas Tech game), and, even when Nwora is not the one attempting the shot, he is the one exerting a fierce gravitational pull on the opposing defense's attention.
3. Myles Powell, Seton Hall Pirates
The Pirates split a two-game series with Iowa State (the loss was in Ames) and dropped nail-biters against Oregon and Michigan State, but the point remains: Seton Hall is as strong as it has been in years, and Powell is the largest single factor driving that status. He's accounting for an incredible 40% of SHU's shot attempts during his minutes, and the offense is in fact vastly improved since last season. Powell is averaging close to four made 3s a game on 40% shooting, and he's taking excellent care of the ball. The senior has been even better than expected.
Udoka Azubuike cleans up Marcus Garrett's miss with a powerful putback dunk.
4. Udoka Azubuike, Kansas Jayhawks
At the risk of being overly analytical, Azubuike is just too huge to stop when he gets the ball anywhere near the basket. The senior is a career 75% shooter inside the arc, and this season he's recording (what a coincidence) fully 75% of his 2-point attempts at the rim. Note additionally that Azubuike's block rate is higher than it has ever been, and his 29-point outburst against Dayton in the title game of the Maui Invitational marked a career high. With Isaiah Moss healthy and Devon Dotson, Marcus Garrett and Ochai Agbaji being their usual selves, KU's "small ball" attack now looks fully armed and operational at last. Just keep in mind it's a version of small ball that thrives with a 7-foot, 270-pound star as its motor.
Once you're making more than seven 2-pointers a game you are in some rarefied company. Toppin is doing just that (7.1), and his volume is helped along by the fact he's shooting 73% inside the arc. In three games at the Maui Invitational against Georgia, Virginia Tech and Kansas, the 6-9 sophomore rang up 65 points on just 36 shots from the field. Now Toppin is being projected as a 2020 lottery pick, thanks not only to his Zion Williamson-esque interior performance but also on the basis of the hints thrown out by 47% career 3-point shooting at the lowest of volumes.
6. Cassius Winston, Michigan State Spartans
Don't blame Michigan State's travails on Winston. The senior has been pretty much what everyone thought he would be when he was earning preseason first-team All-American honors. When the Spartans edged Georgia in Maui, Winston scored 28 points on 16 shots and dished out eight assists. He is the catalyst of what could still, even with three losses, turn out to be one of the best offenses in the nation. He leads the team in made 3s, and the career 85% foul shooter is doing even better than that this season. The MSU defense has been less formidable than predicted, but Winston is still the leader of an elite offense.
7. Kaleb Wesson, Ohio State Buckeyes
Wesson gives Chris Holtmann one of the better combinations of rim defense, rebounding and (relative) freedom from foul trouble in the country. What is particularly interesting, and unusual, is that Wesson has ceded such a large chunk of his workload on offense this season and, of course, that it has worked beautifully for Ohio State. Rather incredibly, the Buckeyes' 6-9, 270-pound potential Big Ten player of the year is averaging about two 2-point makes per game. Don't mess with success: OSU as a team is hitting its shots and completely shutting down opposing offenses.
8. Payton Pritchard, Oregon Ducks
The pass-first freshman point guard you remember from the 2017 Final Four is now the clear featured scorer in a rotation where he just happens to be an excellent point guard as well. His eight 3-pointers over two games against Gonzaga and North Carolina weren't enough to prevent the Ducks from recording two close losses, but the senior is recording the best shooting of his career from the field. Pritchard also accounts for a higher percentage of UO's assists during his minutes than ever before.
Duke's Tre Jones finds a lane to the basket and banks in a layup off the glass.
9. Tre Jones, Duke Blue Devils
The case for Jones being one of the top players in the country in 2019-20 is exceedingly simple. You know him to be one of the best defenders in Duke's recent history and an excellent distributor as well. Now as a sophomore, he's making a normal share of his low-volume 3s (33%) too. The sagging that opposing defenses used to display so ostentatiously and understandably when guarding Jones on the perimeter is becoming a thing of the past. That's good news for Vernon Carey (who will have more room to operate in the paint) and bad news for opponents.
10. Devon Dotson, Kansas Jayhawks
Dotson turned in what is likely to stand as the best six-turnover game of 2019-20 with his 31-point, five steal effort in KU's overtime win against Dayton in Maui. He's playing a much more prominent role in the Jayhawk offense as a sophomore, as well he should. While his perimeter shot has yet to cooperate this season, Dotson has been deadly inside the arc and has connected on better than 85% of his frequent free throw attempts. Best of all, the sophomore and his similarly versatile teammates give Bill Self the luxury of "going small" on offense with little or no penalty on defense.
11. Kamar Baldwin, Butler Bulldogs
When Baldwin erupted for 31 points on just 15 shots to lead Butler to a 67-58 win at Ole Miss, Rebels head coach Kermit Davis Jr. offered a succinct appraisal of what he'd just witnessed: "That cat can play in the NBA." Although nominally undersized as a 6-1 scoring guard, the senior is riddling opposing defenses with makes while carrying a larger number for possession usage than any Bulldog in more than a decade. Butler has taken a giant leap forward on both sides of the ball since last season, and having a featured scorer who's posting career-highs for accuracy both from beyond the arc and at the line has definitely accelerated the teamwide improvement on offense.
12. Tyrese Haliburton, Iowa State Cyclones
Mock the eye test if you wish, but you can't watch five minutes of Haliburton without registering that the sophomore exudes NBA readiness. This season Haliburton is making the jump from outrageously skilled pass-always point guard (see last season) to outrageously skilled scoring point guard. The results have been highly impressive: Haliburton is still making his shots, but he's now doing so at a much higher volume while also generating steals and, of course, piling up assists. He'll have his hands at the controls of an offense at the next level before too long.
Georgia's Anthony Edwards gets out in transition and throws down the monster windmill dunk.
13. Anthony Edwards, Georgia Bulldogs
The award for the best half of basketball by a single player this season goes to Edwards, who lit up Michigan State for 33 points after the intermission in Georgia's 93-85 loss to the Spartans at the Maui Invitational. That single performance, much more than Edwards' season totals, suggests that the hype is correct and that the freshman really will be one of the next big things. Now, can that happen soon enough to make a difference for the Bulldogs in 2019-20? Possibly. One easy fix could be shot selection: Edwards has been somewhat fond of 2-point jumpers in the early going but is hitting just 25% of those tries.
14. Zeke Nnaji, Arizona Wildcats
Purely in terms of volume combined with accuracy, Nnaji ranks alongside the likes of Udoka Azubuike and Obi Toppin for "best 2-point scorer of the season so far" honors. More specifically, the Arizona freshman is the master of the 2-point jumper. That particular part of the game is supposed to be dying and perhaps it should be dying, but as long as it's Nnaji pulling the trigger, it might not be such a bad shot selection after all. Sean Miller's star has converted a rather incredible 63% of his 2-point jumper attempts to this point in the season.
15. Vernon Carey, Duke Blue Devils
Carey is now very much "the man" in the Duke offense, but it wasn't immediately apparent that this would be the case this season. In the Blue Devils' first two games against Kansas and Colorado State, the freshman accounted for just 20% of the team's shot attempts during his minutes. Over the past eight contests, conversely, Carey has been personally responsible for no less than 32% of Duke's tries. This explosion in work load represents Mike Krzyzewski's recognition of a crucial basketball fact: Carey is outstanding, and he personally wore out Michigan State in East Lansing to the tune of 26 points in just 25 minutes.
16. Anthony Cowan, Maryland Terrapins
Few players are more accommodating to forecasters than Cowan, who has now made 108 career starts for the Terrapins and has demonstrated rather remarkable consistency over that span. Now Mark Turgeon's senior is shooting better from the field than he ever has, and his 30-point effort against Temple at the Orlando Invitational gave Maryland just enough of a push for a hard-fought 76-69 win. Most important of all, Cowan has been trustworthy with the ball (the four turnovers at Penn State notwithstanding), and a critical factor for a team that excelled in many categories last season but was undone on more than one occasion by an abundance of turnovers.
17. Aaron Nesmith, Vanderbilt Commodores
If you think Markus Howard is having a pretty amazing senior season, and you should indeed think that, consider the following comparison: Aaron Nesmith is making 3s at a higher volume (4.4 per game) than Howard is (3.8). Plus, he's doing so while shooting far more accurately (51%) than the Marquette star (45%) from beyond the arc. Granted, Nesmith's numbers are based on just eight games, and the claim made here isn't that the Vanderbilt sophomore is already assured of going down in the history books as one of the greatest high-volume 3-point shooters ever. Rather, the suggestion here is merely that it's early for all these guys and, within those narrow evaluative confines, Nesmith has been a blowtorch aimed at opposing defenses.
Cole Anthony nails back-to-back 3-pointer to pull the Tar Heels within 3 points of Ohio State.
18. Cole Anthony, North Carolina Tar Heels
Since his spectacular 34-point debut against Notre Dame in the first game of his college career, Anthony has struggled to get the ball in the basket, particularly from inside the arc. Nevertheless, he's a shot-creator in a rotation that doesn't have many such players, and is additionally a good distributor who crashes the defensive glass. The NBA is correct to be enthusiastic about the freshman, and now it's just a question of whether Anthony can translate that potential into present-tense performance during what one presumes will be his narrow college window.
19. Zavier Simpson, Michigan Wolverines
Michigan has been better than expected this season and, specifically, the Wolverine offense has been significantly more effective than anticipated. Simpson gets a big chunk of the credit there. The senior accounts for nearly half of the assists that occur during his minutes on the floor, and he's become a model of Haliburton-esque low-volume accuracy from the field. Most impressively, a 6-foot point guard is single-handedly bringing the hook shot back to the college game after a 30-plus-year absence. That's quite the body of work purely on offense coming from a first-team All-Big Ten Defensive selection.
20. Jared Butler, Baylor Bears
Scott Drew is throwing a trio of versatile (and similarly-sized) combo guards at opponents this season, and Butler, MaCio Teague and Davion Mitchell have powered the Bears to the program's best start in three years. Butler in particular has been outstanding, averaging better than three makes per game from beyond the arc while shooting well above 40% and recording big year-to-year improvements both in his turnover rate and in his accuracy at the line. The sophomore's 22-point effort in just 30 minutes against Villanova effectively demonstrated BU can and will win tough games while Tristan Clark is still recovering from last season's knee injury.
21. Nico Mannion, Arizona Wildcats
Arizona's highly touted freshman has more than lived up to his billing, scoring 21 points to go along with nine assists against Illinois in the second game of his career and then topping that with both a 16/11 points/assists double-double and the game-winning shot in the Wildcats' 93-91 victory over Pepperdine. Mannion fairly exudes calm mastery at the point guard slot, and while he's given the ball away five times in a game on two occasions, his highlight-reel passing and highly accurate shooting (from both the field and the line) translate into an impeccable offensive rating and, more importantly, points on the board for UA.
22. Luka Garza, Iowa Hawkeyes
It was in a losing cause and, sure, feel free to doubt the Hawkeye D (now in the third year of its rebuilding program), but the 44 points Garza rang up against Michigan last week constituted the highest total recorded by any opposing player against the Wolverines in the past decade. Iowa combines a low turnover rate with a healthy number of offensive boards, and it's Garza leading the charge on both fronts. The 6-foot-11 junior is getting more chances to score, and he's making the most of those opportunities.
23. Onyeka Okongwu, USC Trojans
Last month Okongwu recorded a 17-of-21 performance at the line in USC's 91-84 win over Pepperdine, giving Andy Enfield's freshman national bragging rights (shared with Utah State's Sam Merrill) in this season's all-important "I've made more free throws in a game than you've made" category. As if that weren't enough, the 6-9 Okongwu is also functioning as one of D-I's top rim defenders yet he's picked up more than three fouls just once in his young career. (Granted, it was a killer. He fouled out in 25 minutes in the Trojans' 22-point loss to Marquette). Historically speaking, that's a highly encouraging sign in a freshman.
24. Jay Huff, Virginia Cavaliers
In a rotation that has gone through a scoring drought or two this season, Huff is the only player with an offensive rating above 105. Better still, it's way above that number: 117, to be exact. True, we've seen vivid proof that Huff's individual efficiency is plainly insufficient to the task of elevating the entire Virginia offense, but the junior is still worthy of a spot here. Huff is a fair rim defender and very good offensive rebounder who's connecting on 71% of his 2s.
25. Jordan Roland, Northeastern Huskies
Roland captured national attention by scoring 81 points in the first two games of the season, and, while he hasn't topped 30 since (gasp!) he's actually been consistently excellent over the first six weeks. Even when the Huskies lost at home to Davidson last weekend, for example, the senior still notched 24 points on just 13 shots. Few, if any players nationally are shooting so well (he's hitting 46% of his 3s and 64% of his 2s) while shooting so often (he's accounting for 31% of Northeastern's attempts during his minutes). If Jim Boeheim had a time machine, he'd prioritize recruiting this graduate of Westhill High in Syracuse.