2023-24 Men's College Basketball Players Off to a Surprisingly Hot Start

Every season in men's college basketball, a bunch of breakout stars alter the national landscape.

Last year, Kris Murray followed in his brother Keegan's footsteps at Iowa. The Markquis Nowell and Keyontae Johnson tandem unexpectedly put Kansas State back on the map. Zach Edey turned into Shaq Edey. And biggest of all, Jordan Hawkins went from a freshman backup to a sophomore sensation, leading UConn to a national championship while playing his way into the NBA draft lottery. Kobe Bufkin, Brandin Poziemski and O-Max Prosper also blossomed into first-round picks out of seemingly nowhere.

While not everyone on this list will be a first-round pick in 2024, they've made similar leaps in production through the first few weeks of the current campaign.

Every player in our top 10 is averaging at least twice as many points as last season—most of them are more than tripling their average output from 2022-23—and every team represented currently ranks in the top 60 on KenPom, which is unofficially NCAA tournament range.

In other words, each of these players could be a major factor in March after making little to no impact on the national radar one year ago.

Statistics are current through the start of play on Wednesday, Nov. 29. Players are presented in alphabetical order by last name.

Freshmen Putting Up Surprisingly Big Numbers:

• Bub Carrington, Pittsburgh (14.9 PPG, 5.9 APG, 5.6 RPG)
• Rob Dillingham, Kentucky (15.4 PPG, 5.7 APG, 4.4 RPG, 1.6 SPG)
• Josh Hubbard, Mississippi State (16.3 PPG)
• Sebastian Mack, UCLA (15.8 PPG, 4.7 RPG, 2.2 SPG)
• Myles Rice, Washington State (17.2 PPG, 2.8 RPG, 2.5 APG)

Big Breakouts From Teams Outside KenPom Top 60:

• Kanye Clary, Penn State (from 3.7 PPG and 0.7 APG to 16.7 PPG and 2.1 APG)
• Marcus Foster, Furman (from 10.6 PPG to 22.1 PPG)
• Kobe Johnson, West Virginia (from 2.0 PPG to 10.8 PPG, 3.5 RPG and 3.2 APG)
• Xavier Johnson, Southern Illinois (from 7.0 PPG and 2.7 APG to 21.8 PPG and 4.7 APG)
• Malik Reneau, Indiana (from 6.1 PPG to 15.3 PPG and 3.3 APG)
• Hunter Sallis, Wake Forest (from 4.5 PPG at Gonzaga to 18.3 PPG)
• Dontrez Styles, Georgetown (from 1.4 PPG at UNC to 17.8 PPG and 7.2 RPG)
  
• Kel'el Ware, Indiana (from 6.6 PPG, 4.1 RPG and 0.5 APG at Oregon to 17.7 PPG, 8.8 RPG and 2.0 APG)

Players Who Just Missed the Top 10:

• Jimmy Bell Jr., Mississippi State (from 4.8 PPG at WVU to 9.4 PPG, 10.0 RPG and 1.3 BPG)
• Camryn Carter, Kansas State (from 6.5 PPG to 16.9 PPG, 3.1 APG and 2.6 SPG)
• Desmond Claude, Xavier (from 4.7 PPG to 16.7 PPG)
• Bensley Joseph, Miami (from 5.3 PPG and 0.6 SPG to 10.3 PPG and 2.3 SPG)
• Dug McDaniel, Michigan (from 8.6 PPG to 18.4 PPG)
• Daniel Skillings Jr., Cincinnati (from 5.3 PPG and 3.3 RPG to 13.3 PPG and 6.8 RPG)

2022-23 Stats: 4.6 PPG, 1.6 RPG, 1.6 APG, 0.7 SPG, 39.0 3P% on 2.2 attempts per game

2023-24 Stats: 13.5 PPG, 3.8 RPG, 3.8 APG, 1.7 SPG, 58.6 3P% on 4.8 attempts per game

Kylan Boswell played all of last year at just 17 years old. He didn't celebrate his 18th birthday until mid-April, yet he was the indispensable backup combo guard for one of the best teams in the country, logging double-digit minutes in every game from New Year's Day onward.

Still younger than a lot of freshmen, the sophomore has stepped confidently into the role of lead guard for the uptempo Wildcats. He's scored in double figures in each of their six games and has dished out at least three assists in each of their past five contests.

It is already abundantly clear how important he is to Arizona's cause. He played 33 minutes in the road win over Duke and was the brightest star of that game, finishing with 12 points, eight rebounds, five assists, two steals and the lone block of his career. And in the Thanksgiving victory over Michigan State, Boswell played 36 minutes with a 12-3-3-2 line.

He's inevitably bound to cool down from three-point range at some point, but Boswell has hit multiple triples in each game.

2022-23 Stats: 3.6 PPG, 1.7 RPG, 0.4 APG (at Michigan State)

2023-24 Stats: 16.7 PPG, 3.7 RPG, 1.4 APG

Tom Izzo hasn't added any transfers to Michigan State's roster in the past two years, but he sure did lose a good one in Pierre Brooks.

Brooks barely saw the floor as a freshman in 2021-22. And after making a few starts early last season while Jaden Akins was injured, he ended the year in Izzo's doghouse, watching the entirety of MSU's three-game NCAA tournament run from the bench.

So he hopped into the transfer portal, landed at Butler and has blossomed into a star.

Unfortunately, he wasn't able to do anything to prevent Butler's loss to his former team. Brooks scored 13 in his Nov. 17 return to the Breslin Center, but the Bulldogs got blown out 74-54.

Aside from that, though, they kind of look like an NCAA tournament team with Brooks leading that charge.

Butler would have made the NCAA tournament in 2020, but its last official appearance in the dance came back in 2018. This program has barely even been competitive over the past three years.

But the Bulldogs gave Florida Atlantic quite the battle in the opener of the ESPN Events Invitational. They subsequently defeated Penn State and Boise State by double digits, with Brooks exploding for 51 points between those two victories.

He has scored in double figures in each of their seven games, playing much more efficiently than he ever did in his two years with the Spartans.

2022-23 Stats: 5.6 PPG, 2.3 APG, 21.1 3P% on 0.6 attempts per game

2023-24 Stats: 18.5 PPG, 6.8 APG, 44.4 3P% on 1.5 attempts per game

New Mexico veteran point guard Jaelen House (16.9 PPG and 4.7 APG in 2022-23) has been sidelined by a hip injury for almost this entire season thus far. He missed most of the preseason, played 19 minutes in the opener against Texas Southern and hasn't touched the floor since.

Considering the Lobos were already in the process of replacing three starters from last season, House's absence created an even bigger vacuum—one that could pretty much only be filled by Donovan Dent.

The good news is that the sophomore point guard has risen to the occasion in a big way.

Even with House playing in the first game of the season, Dent was already in the starting lineup, finishing that one with 12 points and six assists. But after attempting only five two-point shots in the season opener, he has averaged 13 two-point attempts per game sans House, making the most of the drastic uptick in time with the ball in his hands.

Dent is no black hole of a ball hog, though. He still has at least five assists in every game, including an 18-point, 11-dime double-double in the blowout victory over Rice.

How UNM divvies up touches between Dent, House and Jamal Mashburn if and when they get back to full strength will be interesting to monitor, but Dent has helped them tread water as an early at-large candidate in the meantime.

2022-23 Stats: 2.6 PPG, 2.9 RPG, 1.1 BPG, 0.4 SPG

2023-24 Stats: 10.3 PPG, 7.0 RPG, 2.5 BPG, 2.8 SPG

Last year, Ryan Dunn was Virginia's underutilized secret weapon.

He led the team in both rebound percentage and block percentage and typically provided a spark when he stepped on the floor. However, he ranked eighth on the team in minutes played and was seemingly reminded before every trip to the scorer's table not to shoot too much, as he averaged a meager 6.2 field-goal attempts per 40 minutes.

But Virginia lost five of the seven guys who played more than Dunn did in 2022-23, including the trio of Jayden Gardner, Ben Vander Plas and Kadin Shedrick who were blocking his path to frontcourt minutes.

Aside from 6'7" Tristan How, who hardly ever plays, the 6'8" Dunn was Tony Bennett's only returning player taller than 6'5", so he has stepped into a much bigger role as a sophomore.

Dunn still isn't anything close to a volume shooter, but he is leading the team in rebounds, blocks and steals and trails only Reece Beekman for the team lead in points. He has already thrown down a few outrageous dunks and is drawing fouls and getting free throws at a remarkable rate.

He's a much more explosive version of what Mamadi Diakite was for the national championship-winning Cavaliers five years ago. And he's probably only scratching the surface of what he can do, as he has a better shooting stroke than his career 24.1 three-point percentage would have you believe.

2022-23 Stats: 4.6 PPG, 1.6 RPG, 0.9 APG

2023-24 Stats: 15.0 PPG, 5.7 RPG, 3.7 APG

There were a lot of things wrong with Ohio State last season, but perhaps the biggest problem was the lack of a ball distributor. The Buckeyes tried using Oklahoma State transfer Isaac Likekele in that capacity, but it never quite worked, resulting in a team assist rate that ranked among the worst in the nation and easily the worst in Ohio State's KenPom history.

But with Likekele, Brice Sensabaugh, Justice Sueing and Sean McNeil no longer in Columbus, sophomore guard Roddy Gayle Jr. has seized a major opportunity to shine.

This isn't just a "bigger numbers because of more minutes" situation, either. Gayle went from averaging 11.3 points, 4.0 rebounds and 2.2 assists per 40 minutes last season to 20.2, 7.6 and 4.9 this year, respectively, as his usage rate has gone up by more than 50 percent.

Fellow sophomore Bruce Thornton is still the star for the Buckeyes, besting Gayle by a bit in both the points and assists departments. However, there's no way Ohio State is 5-1 with a quality win over Alabama without Gayle's drastic improvement.

In that marquee victory, he went for 23 points. He also had 20 in the win over Merrimack and a 17-7-5 line in a narrow season-opening victory over Oakland—which might be a decent Cinderella candidate, given its recent road win over Xavier.

Can Gayle help keep the Buckeyes relevant for four months for a change, though? Over the previous five years, they went 48-10 in November and December, but 50-56 the rest of the way.

2022-23 Stats: 7.9 PPG, 5.3 RPG, 0.9 APG, 0.5 SPG

2023-24 Stats: 24.0 PPG, 10.4 RPG, 1.6 APG, 1.4 SPG

Exploding from roughly eight points per game one season to around 24 points per game the following season is what Keegan Murray did for Iowa a few years ago.

In Murray's case, though, he was a backup as a freshman before stepping into a massive void left behind by the departures of Luka Garza and Joe Wieskamp. You're also talking about Iowa, where Fran McCaffery just keeps churning out high-scoring, poor-defending teams, no matter the roster construction. Not to downplay Murray's talent, but someone had to score those 83 points per game, and he was the primary benefactor.

With Jaedon Ledee, however, you're talking about a fifth-year senior becoming an offensive dynamo out of nowhere. And he's playing at a San Diego State program where defense has long been king; where there hasn't been an 18 PPG guy—let alone 24 PPG—since Brandon Heath in 2006-07.

Yes, the Aztecs lost several key players from last year's rotation, but there was no reason to expect Ledee to more than triple his scoring average.

His playing time has nearly doubled, but it's more than that. He's looking to create like never before. He's drawing fouls at one of the highest rates in the country. He has already made four three-pointers after going 0-for-16 from distance over the past four years. And he's still making a solid impact on defense, with at least two combined blocks and steals in each game thus far.

Simply put, Ledee has become the total package and the biggest breakout star of the 2023-24 season. After he went for 34 points and 17 rebounds in an overtime victory over Washington, the Dec. 29 showdown with Gonzaga officially became a must-watch affair.

2022-23 Stats: 4.8 PPG, 1.8 RPG, 0.9 APG, 23.2 3P% on 1.8 attempts per game

2023-24 Stats: 18.8 PPG, 4.3 RPG, 3.3 APG, 44.8 3P% on 4.8 attempts per game

Xaivian Lee was a complete nonfactor in Princeton's shocking run to last year's Sweet 16. He played a grand total of eight minutes between the three tournament games, finishing with one point, one rebound, one turnover and one foul.

He got quite a bit of run prior to the Big Dance, though. Lee averaged 15 minutes per game during the regular season as the Tigers were planning ahead for when they would need Lee to replace Tosan Evbuomwan in the starting lineup.

Thus far, both he and Princeton have been rewarded for that patience.

Lee maxed out at 12 points as his season-high last year, but he has scored at least 14 points in each game this season. He went for 16 with five assists in the season-opening win over Rutgers, scored 20 in a solid road win over Duquesne and exploded for a career-high 30 points (plus six rebounds and four dimes) in the win over Northeastern last Saturday.

Princeton was a surprise March Madness darling last year, not beating a single KenPom top 125 opponent until the Ivy League championship against Yale. But with Lee running the show, this year's Tigers already have three such victories and could be an at-large candidate if Yale returns the favor.

Also, here's a fun fact: Lee and Ryan Dunn played for the same high school (Perkiomen School in Pennsylvania) two years ago, prior to quiet freshman campaigns and breakout sophomore seasons.

2022-23 Stats: 4.3 PPG, 3.9 RPG, 0.4 APG, 0.3 BPG

2023-24 Stats: 11.7 PPG, 8.5 RPG, 2.2 APG, 1.3 BPG

Calling Dillon Mitchell's sophomore year breakout a "surprisingly" hot start is disingenuous. He was a top-10 recruit in the 2022 class, and he nearly jumped out of the gym on several occasions last season.

He just needed a little polishing and seasoning to emerge as a possible star.

Mitchell's jumper is still a work in progress, but he is working on it, as evidenced by his four three-point attempts compared to zero last year.

He had a career-high 21 points against Connecticut in the Empire Classic championship game, though six of his nine made buckets were layups or dunks. The same goes for five of his six made baskets in Sunday's win over Wyoming.

But at least he can go get those buckets now. It seemed like he could only score on alley-oops or putback dunks last season, but Mitchell is clearly figuring out how to actually play basketball as opposed to just being an absurdly gifted athlete.

His assist rate has more than tripled and his block rate has more than doubled, as he's now seeing more of the floor and learning where to be. He has also improved as a rebounder.

Perhaps best of all, he's no longer a 40 percent free-throw shooter. Mitchell is still only at 60 percent from the charity stripe, but that's enough of an improvement that Texas doesn't have to bench him during crunch time in fear of opponents fouling him into obsolescence.

2022-23 Stats: 4.8 PPG, 2.1 RPG, 0.2 APG, 1.2 SPG

2023-24 Stats: 15.0 PPG, 4.8 RPG, 1.0 APG, 2.3 SPG

It wasn't until the tail end of last season that Oklahoma started to figure out how to best utilize Otega Oweh.

In fairness, though, he doesn't really fit into any conventional boxes.

Oweh is a 6'5"...something. He's not really a guard or a wing, as he rarely gets assists or shoots threes. However, he does have a guard-like mentality on defense, averaging 3.6 steals per 40 minutes thus far in his college career. And though the vast majority of his shots come from inside the arc, he's neither a power forward nor a center, as he doesn't grab a ton of rebounds and almost never blocks shots.

In lieu of boxing anyone in as a traditional C, F, or G, some coach a few years ago wanted all of his guys labeled in the media guide as Bs for basketball players. So, let's just call Oweh a baller, as he quickly became a key cog for the Sooners once they embraced letting him just be who he is.

In leading Oklahoma to victory over Iowa and USC in the Rady Children's Invitational, Oweh finished with a combined 29 points, eight rebounds and five steals, including the game-winning putback in the championship game.

2022-23 Stats: 8.4 PPG, 3.3 RPG, 37.5 3P% on 2.8 attempts per game

2023-24 Stats: 18.2 PPG, 6.3 RPG, 55.9 3P% on 5.7 attempts per game

With the exception of senior night, Wooga Poplar started every game for the Hurricanes last season. But he was very much the fifth wheel/glue guy. He scored at least 165 fewer points than each of the other starters and typically the first one to head to the bench when it was time to give some minutes to Bensley Joseph or Harlond Beverly.

With both Isaiah Wong and Jordan Miller now out of the picture, though, Poplar is the furthest thing from an ancillary character in Miami.

Poplar entered Tuesday's big clash with Kentucky as the Hurricanes' leading scorer, shooting an unconscious 19-for-32 from three-point range. He does need to work through some turnover woes which have arisen now that he's in a more ball-dominant role, but he has scored at least 13 points in each of their first six games.

Even though that game against the Wildcats got all sort of ugly for Miami, Poplar held his own in Rupp Arena with 19 points, eight rebounds and a pair of steals with just one turnover.