Jahlil Okafor leads top projected freshmen scorers in college hoops

Duke's Jahlil Okafor, UNLV's Rashad Vaughn and Arizona's Stanley Johnson lead SI's projected top scoring freshmen of 2014-15.

On Tuesday, we released the first batch of data from a college basketball statistical projection system developed by economist Dan Hanner with assistance from SI's Luke Winn. That story included our projected top 100 scorers, top 20 rebounders and top 20 in assists, and it contains a more in-depth description of the statistical model. Today, we unveil our forecast of the top 50 freshmen scorers according to raw points per game.

How can you project the statistics of players who've never appeared in a college game? Forecasting freshman performance is bound to be a less accurate endeavor than forecasting returning players, who already have a statistical body of work. But recruiting rankings, according to Dan Hanner's analysis of more than a decade's worth of player data, have some predictive power over a freshman's immediate performance as well as players' career development curves.

Hanner has created advanced-stat profiles for guards, wings and big men in different tiers of the Recruiting Services Consensus Index (RSCI) top 100 (an aggregate of national recruiting rankings), and for players beyond the top 100, profiles based on aggregate star ratings from VerbalCommits.com. We've then projected raw statistics (points, rebounds and assists per game) by placing players within the context of their teams. The model takes into account what level of minutes and shots are available, and in some cases intel from coaching staffs on how team rotations will be structured.

We ran projections on every true and redshirt freshman from the top 11 conferences -- the football power five plus the Atlantic 10, Big East, AAC, Missouri Valley, Mountain West and West Coast. (Recruiting-service evaluations of players in leagues beyond that cutoff are too limited to project individual-player data with much confidence.) What follows is the statistical model's projection of the top 50 freshmen in raw points per game, along with data on their projected efficiency and usage rates. It's a list based on the convergence of recruiting evaluations and immediate opportunity.

Rank	name	pos.	team	RSCI Rank	PPG	ORTG	POss. (%)	RPG	APG	Mins
1	Jahlil Okafor	C	Duke	1	16.1	121	24	9.1	1.1	79%
2	Rashad Vaughn	SG	UNLV	10	16.0	118	23	6.7	2.3	83%
3	Stanley Johnson	SG	Arizona	3	13.4	115	23	5.6	1.6	75%
4	D'Angelo Russell	SG	Ohio State	16	13.3	109	24	4.5	2.1	75%
5	Justin Jackson	SF	North Carolina	9	13.1	117	22	5.7	1.5	70%
6	Isaiah Whitehead	SG	Seton Hall	14	12.6	109	24	3.9	1.9	70%
7	Isaac Hamilton	PG	UCLA	19	12.4	112	21	4.6	2.2	78%
8	Tyus Jones	PG	Duke	7	12.3	117	22	3.6	4.9	74%
9	Myles Turner	PF	Texas	6	12.3	121	21	8.2	0.9	69%
10	James Blackmon Jr.	SG	Indiana	21	11.8	108	23	3.9	1.9	68%

Our No. 1 scorer, Jahlil Okafor, is the RSCI's No. 1 overall recruit and also the freshman most likely to be a first team All-America. He's projected to average nearly a double-double with a high rate of efficiency, playing major minutes on a Duke team with plenty of shots available following Jabari Parker's departure to the NBA. D'Angelo Russell is No. 16 in the RSCI but projected as our No. 4 scorer, because he's stepping into perfect situation at offensively challenged Ohio State. The Buckeyes lost their marginally efficient shot-chucker from last season, LaQuinton Ross, and Russell, a 6-foot-4 two-guard, figures be the best (and most frequent) shooter in their starting lineup.

Rank	name	pos.	team	RSCI Rank	PPG	ORTG	POss. (%)	RPG	APG	Mins
11	Cliff Alexander	PF	Kansas	4	11.7	117	23	6.8	0.8	61%
12	Kelly Oubre	SF	Kansas	8	10.6	117	23	4.4	1.2	56%
13	Karl-Anthony Towns	PF	Kentucky	5	10.3	115	23	6.1	0.7	55%
14	Daniel Hamilton	SF	Connecticut	17	10.3	108	22	4.4	1.8	63%
15	Kevon Looney	PF	UCLA	11	10.1	112	21	5.9	0.8	64%
16	Justise Winslow	SF	Duke	13	10.1	112	20	4.3	1.3	64%
17	Kaleb Joseph	PG	Syracuse	52	10.0	101	20	4.1	3.6	81%
18	Reid Travis	PF	Stanford	35	10.0	107	19	6.4	0.9	69%
19	Montaque Gill-Ceaser	SF	Missouri	38	10.0	103	22	4.4	1.3	65%
20	Trevon Bluiett	SF	Xavier	38	9.6	105	21	4.1	1.3	64%

The first Kentucky super-frosh checks in at No. 13; the model projects Karl-Anthony Towns to score 10.3 points per game while playing 55 percent of available minutes. John Calipari's proposed platoon system for the ultra-deep Wildcats -- in which two five-man shifts could each see around 20 minutes per game -- will keep his players' raw stats low. Syracuse point guard Kaleb Joseph (No. 17) is the highest player on our list who was ranked outside the RSCI top 50. With Tyler Ennis in the NBA at least one season earlier than Orange coaches initially expected, Joseph will have to log big minutes out of necessity, and help backcourt mate Trevor Cooney with the scoring.

Rank	name	pos.	team	RSCI Rank	PPG	ORTG	POss. (%)	RPG	APG	Mins
21	Romelo Trimble	PG	Maryland	34	9.5	104	20	3.6	3.8	72%
22	Kameron Chatman	SF	Michigan	27	9.4	106	21	4.3	1.3	64%
23	Dwayne Morgan	SF	UNLV	22	9.4	108	20	5.2	1.3	62%
24	Shelton Mitchell	PG	Vanderbilt	81	9.4	103	19	4.0	3.3	75%
25	Chris McCullough	PF	Syracuse	19	9.3	108	23	5.4	0.8	57%
26	Jordan McLaughlin	PG	USC	41	9.1	106	20	2.5	3.4	63%
27	Angel Delgado	PF	Seton Hall	42	9.1	109	18	5.9	0.9	66%
28	Travyon Reed	C	Auburn	89	9.0	107	18	5.6	0.7	38%
29	Ahmed Hill	SG	Virginia Tech	61	8.8	104	19	4.0	1.6	62%
30	Michal Cekovsky	PF	Maryland	97	8.7	101	19	5.6	0.7	65%

This group includes two point guards who should play major minutes almost by default: Romelo Trimble (21), whose arrival at previously point-guard-less Maryland will allow Dez Wells to play his more natural off-ball position; and Shelton Mitchell (24), a four-star floor general who joins a Vanderbilt roster that was gutted by transfers and suspensions. Trimble and Mitchell are arriving at opportune times, as is the UNLV trio of Rashad Vaughn (2), Dwayne Morgan (23) and Goodluck Okonoboh (38), who join a Rebels team that lost nearly all of its offense from a year ago.

Rank	name	pos.	team	RSCI Rank	PPG	ORTG	POss. (%)	RPG	APG	Mins
31	Elijah Stewart	SG	USC	71	8.7	104	19	3.8	1.5	60%
32	Domantas Sabonis	PF	Gonzaga	92	8.6	108	18	8.1	0.7	62%
33	Devin Robinson	PF	Florida	20	8.6	112	20	4.2	1.2	56%
34	Thomas Welch	C	UCLA	33	8.5	107	20	5.6	0.8	60%
35	Jakeenan Grant	PF	Missouri	50	8.5	103	22	5.4	0.1	56%
36	Theo Pinson	SF	North Carolina	15	8.5	112	19	3.8	1.1	53%
37	Terry Larrier	SF	VCU	40	8.2	107	20	4.3	1.1	54%
38	Goodluck Okonoboh	C	UNLV	32	8.2	108	20	5.9	0.7	54%
39	Robert Johnson	SG	Indiana	47	8.1	109	19	3.0	1.5	56%
40	Namon Wright	SG	Missouri	93	8.1	101	20	3.4	1.5	57%

Of the players in the RSCI top 15, Theo Pinson (36) may be among the most "blocked" as a freshman, in that North Carolina is likely to have multiple wings -- J.P. Tokoto and Justin Jackson -- ahead of him on the depth chart, giving Pinson a single-digit ceiling. We had to make adjustments to the model for Gonzaga freshman Domantas Sabonis; a majority of the RSCI's recruiting services left him unranked because he played for Unicaja Malaga in Spain, rather than a U.S. high school, but scouts believe him to be (at minimum) a four-star recruit, and his rebounding numbers in European U18 competitions suggest he'll be strong on the boards while also scrapping for interior points.

Rank	name	pos.	team	RSCI Rank	PPG	ORTG	POss. (%)	RPG	APG	Mins
41	Malik Marquetti	SF	USC	100	8.0	104	19	4.1	1.0	55%
42	Isaac Copeland	PF	Georgetown	28	8.0	107	19	5.3	0.8	60%
43	Justin Bibbs	SG	Virginia Tech	87	8.0	104	19	3.7	1.5	57%
44	Deandre Burnett	SG	Miami (Fla.)	4 stars	8.0	103	20	2.7	1.5	61%
45	Xavier Rathan-Mayes	SG	Florida State	43	8.0	102	20	3.0	1.5	55%
46	Elbert Robinson	C	LSU	56	7.9	103	18%	5.3	0.6	57%
47	Trey Kell	SG	San Diego State	77	7.9	106	19	3.7	1.6	62%
48	Abdul-Malik Abu	PF	North Carolina State	45	7.8	105	20	5.2	0.7	55%
49	Gary Clark	PF	Cincinnati	4 stars	7.7	102	20	5.0	0.6	56%
50	Vic Law	SF	Northwestern	91	7.7	103	18	4.2	1.2	62%

Here we have two shooting guards who were supposed to open their careers in '13-14. DeAndre Burnett, who shined in fall 2013 scrimmages for Miami before missing the entire season with a broken left wrist, is projected to emerge as a solid complementary scorer to Sheldon McClellan. And Florida State's Xavier Rathan-Mayes, who was academically ineligible in '13-14, should be one of the Seminoles' top three scorers now that he's enrolled and on the team. The first player to miss the top-50 cut, we should mention, is point guard Tyler Ulis, who will pilot one of Kentucky's platoons and likely provide more value as a distributor than he will as a scorer.