Charting college basketball’s top freshmen: How the highly touted recruits of 2015 fared this season
The college basketball regular season and conference tournaments are finished, and it’s time for the real March Madness to begin.
This year’s NCAA Tournament will feature 17 of the Top 25 recruits from the class of 2015, but there are some notable absences. No. 1 recruit Ben Simmons didn’t make the Big Dance and won’t be playing any postseason basketball at all. Big names like Henry Ellenson, Malik Newman and Stephen Zimmerman — all once UK targets — will also be missing from the tournament.
Plenty of talented freshmen will be there, though, and Kentucky has one of the best in Jamal Murray, who has already set the school’s freshman scoring record with 685 points and led all Top 25 recruits from the class of 2015 — including Simmons — in scoring this season. Murray needs just 82 more points — doable at this stage in the season — to achieve the third-highest scoring season in UK history.
Some of UK’s former recruiting targets — such as Jaylen Brown and Brandon Ingram — have excelled this season. Others, like Kansas duo Carlton Bragg and Cheick Diallo, have struggled to find ample playing time.
Check out the chart below for updated season stats for each of the Top 25 recruits from last year (and UK and Louisville freshmen who were ranked outside the Top 25).
Charting the top recruits from the class of 2015
Rk | Player | School | MPG | PPG | RPG | Other stats | NCAA seed |
1 | Ben Simmons | LSU | 34.9 | 19.2 | 11.8 | 4.8 apg, 2.0 spg | None |
2 | Skal Labissiere | Kentucky | 15.6 | 6.5 | 3.1 | 1.6 bpg | 4 |
3 | Brandon Ingram | Duke | 33.9 | 16.7 | 6.8 | 40.0% threes | 4 |
4 | Jaylen Brown | Cal | 27.9 | 15.0 | 5.5 | 30.0% threes | 4 |
5 | Cheick Diallo | Kansas | 7.5 | 2.8 | 2.5 | 22 blocks | 1 |
6 | Diamond Stone | Maryland | 22.6 | 12.9 | 5.5 | 56.6% FGs | 5 |
7 | Ivan Rabb | Cal | 28.4 | 12.5 | 8.5 | 62.2% FGs | 4 |
8 | Malik Newman | Miss. St. | 27.7 | 11.3 | 2.8 | 37.9% threes | None |
9 | Henry Ellenson | Marquette | 33.5 | 17.0 | 9.7 | 44.6% FGs | None |
10 | Jamal Murray | Kentucky | 35.2 | 20.1 | 5.1 | 42.1% threes | 4 |
11 | Stephen Zimmerman | UNLV | 26.6 | 10.5 | 8.7 | 47.7% FGs | None |
12 | Isaiah Briscoe | Kentucky | 32.3 | 9.6 | 5.2 | 3.3 apg | 4 |
13 | Allonzo Trier | Arizona | 28.1 | 15.0 | 3.3 | 36.5% threes | 6 |
14 | Derryck Thornton | Duke | 26.6 | 7.6 | 2.0 | 2.5 apg | 4 |
15 | Chase Jeter | Duke | 7.6 | 1.6 | 1.7 | 27 games | 4 |
16 | Antonio Blakeney | LSU | 30.8 | 12.6 | 3.4 | 33.5% threes | None |
17 | Dwayne Bacon | Florida St. | 28.7 | 15.6 | 5.8 | 29.1% threes | None |
18 | Caleb Swanigan | Purdue | 25.8 | 10.4 | 8.2 | 45.8% FGs | 5 |
19 | Ray Smith | Arizona | — | — | — | Torn ACL | 6 |
20 | Thomas Bryant | Indiana | 22.5 | 11.6 | 5.8 | 68.6% FGs | 5 |
21 | Luke Kennard | Duke | 25.4 | 11.8 | 3.2 | 33.3% threes | 4 |
22 | Jalen Brunson | Villanova | 24.1 | 9.9 | 1.8 | 36.8% threes | 2 |
23 | Jalen Adams | UConn | 23.4 | 7.3 | 2.6 | 35 steals | 9 |
24 | Carlton Bragg | Kansas | 9.1 | 4.1 | 2.4 | 58.1 FG% | 1 |
25 | P.J. Dozier | South Carolina | 18.8 | 6.6 | 3.0 | 33 steals | None |
30 | Donovan Mitchell | Louisville | 19.1 | 7.4 | 3.4 | 44.2% FGs | None |
36 | Deng Adel | Louisville | 12.1 | 4.0 | 2.1 | 45.6% FGs | None |
43 | Ray Spalding | Louisville | 17.5 | 5.6 | 4.3 | 56.0% FGs | None |
50 | Isaac Humphries | Kentucky | 9.5 | 2.0 | 2.5 | 73.3 FT% | 4 |
59 | Charles Matthews | Kentucky | 10.6 | 1.7 | 1.7 | 15 steals | 4 |
This story was originally published March 14, 2016 at 10:20 PM with the headline "Charting college basketball’s top freshmen: How the highly touted recruits of 2015 fared this season."