Now that we will have college basketball again, might it be worth identifying the most intriguing characters in it?
Because, you know, it’s been a while.
Presenting The Athletic’s 25 Most Interesting Players for the 2020-21 men’s hoops campaign. It’s an entirely subjective exercise aimed at, one, reminding everyone who (presumably) will be playing this winter, and, two, highlighting individuals who occupy particularly compelling roles or circumstances.
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This is not a list of the best men’s players. This is not a five-deep preseason All-America squad. For example, a spoiler: Iowa’s Luka Garza isn’t on this list, because while he is exceptionally good at basketball and a favorite to collect a lot of player of the year trophies, we pretty much know Luka Garza will continue to be good at basketball and the program itself isn’t truly at a crossroads. Some overlap with potential stars is inevitable. But this is a little more about those who might affect the shape of the sport without quite as much certainty involved.
Also, yes, some players listed here might not even play, pending waiver approvals. But that’s what makes this interesting!
We also have a list of the most intriguing women’s players.
25. N’Faly Dante, Oregon
Name the most important players on the Ducks’ roster, and the 6-11 sophomore who played in 12 games and took all of 51 shots last season is unlikely to top the list. But there’s a decent argument for Dante representing the difference between Oregon being decent and Oregon being quite dangerous, because he’d fill a need with size and rebounding like no one else on the squad can. There’s also an argument not to get too wound up in his uneven first season, beginning with his late start altogether through a five-week absence due to a knee injury in the middle of Pac-12 play; Dante was, after all, a five-star prospect in the Class of 2020 before reclassifying. But how much progress did he make during an offseason roiled by a pandemic? Is essentially starting anew, healthy and cleared to go from the jump, actually a blessing?
24. Grant Golden, Richmond
The 6-11, 255-pound forward was the most efficient high-usage performer in the Atlantic 10 as a junior, which is notable when you’re in a league with a national Player of the Year candidate-slash-potential lottery pick. (Obi Toppin, for those with short memories.) How much more Golden can perform is a mighty intriguing question. His 753 total minutes ranked just fifth on a 24-win team. But he produced at a rate of 20.7 points and 10.6 rebounds per 40 minutes, and that offensive rating (108.3) was the best of any A-10 player who used at least 28 percent of his team’s possessions, per KenPom.com. So can Golden grow into a more of a Luka Garza-esque workload? They have similar frames (Garza goes 6-11, 260) but Iowa’s star center logged six more minutes per game than Golden did. What’s the ceiling for Chris Mooney’s crew if a redoubtable presence such as Golden can be on the floor 80 percent of the time?
23. Both Gach, Minnesota
On this roster alone, it’s tough to decide between the 6-6 Utah transfer or Liam Robbins, the 7-foot up-transfer from Drake who already received his waiver to play in 2020-21. Robbins definitely helps fill the size void left by Daniel Oturu, and he was a 20-and-10 guy on a per 40-minute basis as a sophomore, but expecting that sort of production to translate immediately to the Big Ten is a stretch. Gach hadn’t yet gotten the yay or nay on his waiver as of this writing, so that instantly makes his situation more intriguing. But he has played at the power-conference level. And while his sophomore numbers weren’t incredible (10.7 points, 3.6 rebounds, 2.9 assists per game and an effective field goal percentage of just 45.5), they do have a glue-guy feel; the curiosity would be how much Gach’s athleticism adds to that to make him a sort of uber-glue guy, or better.
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22. Stef Smith, Vermont
Were one to delve deeply into Catamount roster dynamics, one might make the case for Ben Shungu or Ryan Davis as the most interesting player in-house, simply because they are nice pieces with a chance to do more for a program looking to extend its America East dominance. But that’s overthinking it. This is Smith’s team now, after the 6-1 guard dipped his toes into the NBA Draft waters and then returned to school. The particulars: second-leading scorer last year (14.2 per game), team-best 85 assists, better offensive rating (109.4) than more-renowned teammate Anthony Lamb (103.5) while using about a quarter of Vermont’s possessions. No, this is not an effort to book another trip to Burlington to, uh, take in the local scene. This is why Stef Smith is intriguing: Because John Becker is Vermont’s coach, and while Vermont people believe Becker will be there forever — and he might — there’s also a chance the 52-year-old wants to take a stab at a power-league gig, should the right one pop up. If Vermont is really good again, and the carousel starts turning again, then Becker’s name will surface. But Vermont has to be really good. And Vermont being really good starts with Stef Smith.
21. Cliff Omoruyi, Rutgers
High school and prep basketball in New Jersey produce very good players. Rutgers basketball has been mired in a kind of chicken-egg predicament for a while, in which it hasn’t been all that interesting or good because it doesn’t get a ton of those very good local players … but it has to be good before it gets a ton of those very good local players. And, lo, Steve Pikiell got Rutgers to be good (20 wins last season) while landing one of those very good players in the 6-8 Omoruyi, a top-50 national prospect. It was a big enough deal that the program’s official release about Omoruyi’s signing included a quote from the governor. Whether Omoruyi represents the exception or the new rule could define the entire program trajectory. Of course, that depends on him delivering on his promise and the Scarlet Knights maintaining their upward trajectory.
20. A.J. Green, Northern Iowa
You’re going to have to take a slightly longer view on this one, although the insta-background on the 6-4 junior is notable enough: Top 80 recruit doesn’t leave his hometown to play college ball, takes home Missouri Valley Conference freshman of the year honors and then averages 19.7 points as a sophomore for a 25-win team to earn the league’s player of the year award. No, what’s increasingly intriguing is Green’s potential to etch his name in the conference’s record books over the long haul and thereby put himself in some pretty illustrious company. He has 1,119 points in two seasons; if Green just matches that output for the next two years, he’d surpass Doug McDermott for fourth place on the MVC’s career scoring list. If he maintains something close to his 2019-20 pace, he should slide into third. It’ll take some big, big nights to push toward D.J. Ballentine (second place with 2,464 points) and Hersey Hawkins (first with 2,569), but it’s a pursuit worth monitoring.
19. Oscar Tshiebwe, West Virginia
First, we’ll revisit the well-worn biographical note that the Congolese big man started playing basketball in 2014. Like six years ago. Now we’ll note that as a freshman Tshiebwe was as efficient an offensive player as Kansas All-American Udoka Azubuike, and in fact fractionally better: Tshiebwe’s offensive rating of 114.7 ranked fourth in the Big 12 among players with a usage rate north of 20 percent, per KenPom, and Azubuike (114.3) ranked fifth. Tshiebwe’s offensive rebounding percentage (19.0) led the nation. So is the 6-9 forward a candidate to claim the Best Big 12 Big Man moniker, or something even greater? Well, his supporting cast on a potential top-15 team either enhances that effort or complicates it. He’ll again share frontcourt space with Derek Culver, a double-double threat himself. And then there’s the arrival of four-star recruit Isaiah Cottrell, who will push both returning bigs for minutes. A breakout requires space in which to do said breaking out. How much space Tshiebwe creates for himself in the next part of his skyrocketing basketball journey is worth monitoring.
18. Douglas Wilson, South Dakota State
Admittedly, a deep cut. How many people will make time to dig into the Summit League is debatable. But hear us out. Wilson emerged from the junior college ranks and posted an offensive rating (117.1) that was basically the same as Garza’s (117.0) and ranked third nationally among players who used 28 percent or more of their team’s possessions. He has wing size (6-7, 210 pounds) but absolutely plays like a big, with post-ups and offensive rebound put-backs accounting for half of his possessions, per Synergy Sports. That might not be eye-popping stuff in the age of positionless basketball and 3-point-heavy metrics. But South Dakota State won 22 games, ranked seventh nationally with a raw shooting percentage of 49.1 and brings back all of its top six minutes-loggers from last season. Who knows what a true Cinderella could look like in this crazy, mixed-up season. Regardless, keep an eye on Brookings, S.D., and Wilson, the medium-sized big who could be (again) one of the best offensive players anywhere.
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17. Cade Cunningham, Oklahoma State
The nation’s consensus best high school prospect decides to spend his one-year college residency in Stillwater, Okla. … and then comes to find out the program is banned from the postseason due to NCAA violations committed by a former assistant coach, years before his arrival. The prospect knows all this … and still goes to Oklahoma State. Cunningham’s level of investment indeed will be fascinating to measure. Even if there’s not an NCAA Tournament in the Cowboys’ future, we’ll still be able to gauge if he can help his team become NCAA Tournament-worthy, which would put a good amount of space between Cunningham and previous college basketball ventures such as “Ben Simmons at LSU” and “Markelle Fultz at Washington.” It’s enough to get him on this list, though the preemption of any postseason possibilities keeps him from climbing higher on it.
16. Jordan Goodwin, Saint Louis
OK, while the Billikens might make a push toward the top of the Atlantic 10 this season, and while the 6-3 guard earned a first-team all-league spot last year before testing the NBA Draft waters and returning to school, and while Saint Louis fans never cease making politely optimistic inquiries about their favorite program, this is not about any of that. This is about Jordan Goodwin’s rebounding. This is about a player who averaged 10.4 rebounds per night last year … at 6-3! This is about a player who collected 103 offensive rebounds, good for 31st in the country … at 6-3! No one else on the first page of that offensive rebound leaderboard, so to speak, was shorter than 6-5. (For what it’s worth, Goodwin cracked the national top five with 127 offensive rebounds as a sophomore.) Goodwin was the only player listed at 6-3 or shorter to rank among the NCAA’s top 100 rebounders last season. It’s crazy! Jordan Goodwin is a phenomenon. That is all.
15. Makur Maker, Howard
Might as well start with the obvious: A five-star top-20 prospect plans to play for an HBCU. That is a landmark decision and merits attention all on its own. Less plain is Maker’s ability to forge an instant, massive impact on the floor. Sam Vecenie, The Athletic’s NBA Draft analyst, didn’t have Maker among his top 100 prospects for the 2020 event before the 7-footer withdrew his name from the pool in early August. (Maker had been ruled draft-eligible after petitioning the NBA.) We might not be able to discern just how good Maker is if circumstances dictate conference-only competition, given that KenPom’s highest-rated MEAC team at the end of last season was Norfolk, at 254th. But that’s also kind of the point: Maker’s performance, in the context of his stated goal to be a trendsetter, bears watching.
14. Rocket Watts, Michigan State
A very straightforward inclusion here: Michigan State is in the midst of a heart transplant. The program-defining point guard from Detroit has left the Breslin Center, and now a point guard from Detroit slides into his place. Playing the superficial comparison game with Cassius Winston and Rocket Watts is kind of eerie. Same hometown. Generally same recruiting ranking (Winston 29th overall in 2016, Watts 35th overall in 2019). Pretty much the same height (Watts, at 6-2, has one inch on Winston) and they were even listed at the same weight (185). Watts’ apprenticeship as a freshman was substantive — he did start 16 games — but he’ll have to shoot more efficiently while also cutting down on glitches. (A 45-to-38 assist-to-turnover ratio isn’t good enough.) No reason to strain for insight beyond this: Watts has the con for the foreseeable future. That’s a big deal in East Lansing, and what happens next has ramifications in the Big Ten and well beyond.
13. Landers Nolley, Memphis
Did one waiver save the Penny Hardaway experiment? Yes, yes, that’s almost too click-baity to ask even when there’s nothing to click on. Memphis had good players. Memphis probably is a borderline top-25 team even without Nolley achieving instant eligibility following his transfer from Virginia Tech after just one season. But the 6-7 wing is eligible, officially and instantly, and that nicely rounds out the Tigers’ lineup. One quick question: How good is Landers Nolley? The raw numbers are more than acceptable (15.5 points, 5.8 rebounds per game) but the shooting (37 percent overall) and the turnovers (87, against 77 assists) are not ideal. Put another way: Nolley had the ball a ton in Blacksburg, but his offensive rating (89.8) was far worse than Cole Anthony’s (97.6) was at North Carolina. If the fit is better and Nolley can pair efficiency with production, then Memphis keeps the momentum of the Penny era alive. If increased efficiency doesn’t come with age, then how much better will Memphis truly be for this?
12. Caleb Love, North Carolina
A couple of things you might have heard about last season in Chapel Hill: The basketball was not good, and the point guard play was not, uh, efficient. Expectations are different for 2020-21 in both contexts. Now, the Tar Heels won’t be fine simply because all they needed was Love, the nation’s consensus No. 13 recruit. Some quality returning talent and other highly esteemed recruits collectively have lifted hopes once more, and chances are every piece will be counted upon for a return to ACC contention. Still, Love is perhaps the crucial variable. He must be everything the last 6-3 freshman lead guard was not. He’ll have to take good shots while also putting pressure on the defense and thereby making it easier on others to provide some semblance of offense from the wing — and not necessarily in that order for a program that finished 304th in 3-point accuracy last season. Some freshmen can pull that off. Some don’t, despite their pedigree. North Carolina can’t afford for Love to fall into the latter category.
11. Carlik Jones, Louisville
Pop quiz, hotshot: Who was the most efficient, high-usage offensive performer in the nation last year? OK, so it was Payton Pritchard at Oregon. But who was No. 2? Why, Carlik Jones, former Radford scorer supreme and current grad-transfer backcourt injection for Louisville. Of players who used at least 28 percent of their team’s possessions in 2019-20, Jones’ offensive rating of 119.8 was surpassed only by Pritchard. Jones averaged 20 points on the nose, shot a career-best 40.9 percent from 3-point range and dished out 5.5 assists and grabbed 5.1 rebounds per night. However, we can report the Big South is not the ACC. And that’s always the question with grad transfers such as this: Does the production translate? It’s a paradigm that has chewed up and spit out plenty of others who leap to power leagues for one or two seasons.
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10. Bryce Aiken, Seton Hall
No big deal, the Pirates merely have to replace a backcourt that accounted for 30-plus points per game, one member of which (Myles Powell) was an All-America force of nature. One of the people tasked with this has played four years of college basketball … and taken the floor all of 65 times in those four years. If that doesn’t sound quite right, it isn’t; Aiken’s Harvard career was ravaged by injury, while also offering more than enough in the way of on-court promise to create a great mystery around what Kevin Willard is getting here. Is it a player anywhere near the level of the 6-foot guard who averaged 22.2 points and shot nearly 40 percent from 3 in 2018-19? Is it someone who has faced maybe one too many setbacks to approach even the 16.8 points he has averaged over his four abbreviated seasons? You want to root for a kid such as Aiken, but we just don’t know. Once clarity arrives, it will shape the Big East race, one way or another.
9. Greg Brown III, Texas
There’s probably not a world in which the consensus No. 8 recruit in the country winds up with the Longhorns if Shaka Smart isn’t the coach. That dynamic didn’t save Smart’s job, which maybe didn’t need saving by the end, but it didn’t hurt. And so a five-star, hometown recruit comes aboard and everyone else comes back and, well, Texas has to do something with that. Specifically, Texas has to find the right thing to do with the hyper-athletic, percussive, multi-skilled 6-9 Brown; the program has welcomed top-tier recruits before, like Jarrett Allen and Mo Bamba, without any NCAA Tournament success to show for it. Brown should be the type of forward who can grab a rebound and initiate transition all by himself. Texas’ glut of guards most likely means Brown won’t be running the offense, per se, but he should be reliable enough on the perimeter to give the Longhorns the freedom to invert offense or go at mismatches. There’s also the potential to put a bouncy forward with a massive wingspan at the top of full-court pressure and create — what’s that word again? — havoc. How Brown is deployed, and how effectively he’s deployed, will be very consequential to a team with no excuses left.
8. Drew Timme, Gonzaga
Much more time has been spent fretting over the stay-or-go decisions of some of Timme’s teammates, not to mention the will-he-come-at-all decision of a five-star freshman point guard. Hell, devoted Zags followers arguably might prefer discussing the potential of a different big man, Oumar Ballo, who logged exactly zero minutes in the 2019-20 season. But let’s talk about Timme. Let’s talk about the 6-11, 235-pound former top-40 prospect who swaggered onto campus last summer and immediately impressed everyone with his unabashed competitiveness. And now let’s look at Filip Petrusev and Killian Tillie leaving, and the space that gives Timme — in every sense, because the Petrusev-Timme combo wasn’t super efficient — to expand his game. Playing basically half the time, Timme produced at a 20-and-10 rate when he was out there, shooting 62 percent from the floor. A starter’s workload might lead to a pretty substantial growth spurt.
7. D.J. Carton, Marquette
We’re all starting to understand and respect mental health issues and empathize with those working through them — starting to, though obviously some ghouls remain woefully behind the times — and Carton serving as an avatar of sorts for that process can be a good thing. We certainly don’t want to heap any more expectation on a college sophomore than he’d like, in that context; so suffice to say when the former top-40 recruit takes the floor for Marquette, it’s a victory each time in itself. Also worth noting: Carton has to be good for a program emerging from the Markus Howard era, and he hasn’t played since leaving Ohio State in January. How effective a player with pro potential will be in a guard-friendly system is interesting enough. Add in the layoff factor, as well as the personal backstory, and Carton’s performance could be as meaningful as anyone’s this season.
6. Mac McClung, Texas Tech
McClung’s waiver situation alone might earn him a spot here. In other years, an attempt to play immediately after his transfer from Georgetown would be a long shot, or have no shot at all, whatever behind-scenes dynamics played out during his sophomore year. But the NCAA seems a little more amenable on these matters these days. So now you’ve got an explosive, former Big East All-Freshman team member who has scored 700-plus points in two seasons potentially taking the floor in Lubbock from Day 1. Or not. The difference probably determines whether Chris Beard has a Big 12 contender or a clear-cut second-tier outfit. Moreover, if McClung wants to play with the ball in his hands more, prepping to be a lead guard at the professional level, we’ll see how a motion-heavy offense meshes with that desire. Or if Beard and Co. even see that in a player with a nearly 1:1 assist-to-turnover ratio for his career (109 to 96). They probably pitched that; otherwise McClung would’ve landed elsewhere. Now we wait to see if we see it unfolds this season or next.
5. Remy Martin, Arizona State
There’s the hair and on-court flair. There’s the personality and desire to be a role model for Filipino basketball players, up to and including playing for the national team. There are the hard numbers: 19.1 points and 4.1 assists per game as a junior, with an offensive rating (103.9) that ranked 15th nationally among power-conference players who used 28 percent or more of their team’s possessions, per KenPom. But Martin, in his final season, is reframed as a central character in the Josh Christopher Show. One of the nation’s most offensively gifted freshmen arrives in Tempe, and while the Sun Devils’ tempo (14th nationally last season) should result in plenty of possessions to go around, how does Martin adjust his game — if at all? Is he too comfortable in a lead scorer’s role to cede it? Will he have to? Would he willingly become a distributor if called upon to do that? How it unfolds may dictate how high Bobby Hurley’s crew can climb.
4. Scottie Lewis, Florida
The 6-8 sophomore is a player of his time. He led a Black Lives Matter protest in his home state of New Jersey over the summer, then stepped to the forefront again when he returned to Gainesville as one of the primary voices in a campus rally that included the entire Gators men’s basketball team, dozens of other athletes and many others from the school and community. Lewis has a dynamic, unabashed personality to begin with and how much he will continue to use his voice during the season — because he most likely won’t shy away if asked — will be fascinating. Oh, and the basketball part: Lewis was the consensus No. 9 recruit in the country in the Class of 2019, but his production (8.6 points, 3.6 rebounds, 0.8 assists) didn’t totally align with that ranking. No one would question his athleticism or his ability to make an impact as a defender. The basketball-related production, holistically, is in question. Can Lewis be a breakout star for 2020-21, multitasking as a star for the Gators and for a movement among his peers?
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3. Olivier Sarr, Kentucky
He is one of the most interesting players of 2020-21 because the 7-footer very well might not be a player in 2020-21. Not an active one anyway. There has been no decision on his waiver petition after transferring from Wake Forest. Judging the viability of Sarr’s claim inevitably results is moot; it’s in the NCAA’s hands. At some point there will be a decision. And at that point, Kentucky will have the big body it desperately needs, a 255-pounder who averaged a near double-double in the ACC (13.7 points, 9.0 boards) with a 115.7 offensive rating that ranked second among players using at least 24 percent of their team’s possessions. Sarr surely can be a valuable piece, at minimum, in his new home. Or Sarr has to sit out and the Wildcats’ frontcourt depth is potentially a debilitating problem. It would seem the first piece of intrigue is simply whether Sarr gets tangled up in red tape; the next part would be seeing if he was worth all the fuss in the end.
2. Sam Hauser, Virginia
When last season screeched to a halt, the defending national champions ranked 299th in raw overall field goal percentage and 315th in 3-point shooting. The Cavaliers ranked 234th in the country in adjusted offensive efficiency. These are bad rankings. Your standard Tony Bennett defense led the way to 23 wins nonetheless, but, man, wasn’t life easier with the second-most efficient offense anywhere en route to that 2019 title? Well, here are Hauser’s shooting percentages over three seasons at Marquette: 52.4 percent on 2-point attempts, 44.5 percent on 3s, and, in sum, an effective field goal percentage of 60.9, all while averaging about 15 points a game over his last two years there. These are good numbers for a team in need of pop from the perimeter, in an offense run by a point guard, Kihei Clark, who can get to spots to set up anyone (assist percentage of 37.5 last season). If Hauser sought a more egalitarian attack in his surprising transfer, he found it. Now he must deliver for a preseason top-five team. The stakes have never been higher for him.
1. Ayo Dosunmu, Illinois
This is one where interest and general basketball ability align neatly and unavoidably. The 6-5 junior probably will be a preseason All-American. But this is about the continuing subtext of Dosunmu’s hoops ascent, because in some ways it’s always about the subtext. The Chicago kid put aside his NBA aspirations to return to school and bring Illinois back to greatness. That might as well be the only chryon that television producers throw on the screen for Dosunmu, because the numbers don’t matter as much to Illini faithful as the results they bring about. So will Dosunmu continue to evolve as one of the most clutch performers in college hoops? Will the arrivals of freshman guards Andre Curbelo and Adam Miller give him even more room to work, or will there be a bit of a crowd around the ball all the time? Will Ayo Dosunmu — homegrown talent, program avatar, Mr. Why Not Me himself — bring Illinois back? We will wait and see.
(Top photo of Illinois’ Ayo Dosunmu: Justin Casterline / Getty)
