Bill Self grew up here in Big 12 country. He played at Oklahoma State. He’s coached 23 years at Kansas, the conference’s flagship program.
Never has Self seen a Big 12 freshmen class like this one.
“It’s not even close,” Self said.
Of the top-10 players in ESPN’s latest NBA mock draft, four of them are Big 12 freshmen. All four will be competing in the NCAA Tournament, which starts Thursday.
Kansas guard Darryn Peterson is the projected No. 1 pick. BYU wing AJ Dybantsa is the projected No. 2 pick. Houston guard Kingston Flemings and Arizona guard Brayden Burries are projected to go fifth and 10th in ESPN’s latest mock.
The list doesn’t end there.
Arizona’s Koa Peat (No. 19), Houston’s Chris Cenac Jr. (No. 22) and Baylor’s Tounde Yessoufou (No. 30) are all projected as first-rounders.
Almost a quarter of the first-round picks in this summer’s NBA Draft could be freshman from the Big 12.
“It’s an embarrassment of riches,” ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla said. “We’ve had some of the best freshmen in college basketball in the league over the last two decades, but they seem to have come one at a time. Blake Griffin, Kevin Durant, Trae Young, Michael Beasley …”
Flemings and Cenac are here in Oklahoma City this weekend. No. 2 seed Houston faces No. 15 seed Idaho at 9:10 p.m. Thursday at Paycom Center.
“I think it’s always hard coming in the first year and doing pretty well, but I think all the freshmen across the country, not just the Big 12, just kind of come into each team and do what our coaches tell us to do,” said Flemings, whom Fraschilla compared to Russell Westbrook.
To Flemings’ point, freshmen reign in the Big 12 and beyond. The entire top-10 on ESPN’s mock are freshmen: four from the Big 12, three from the ACC, two from the SEC and one from the Big Ten.
“I think it’s also a sign of the times, the way summer basketball is structured,” Houston coach Kelvin Sampson said. “These kids are on planes from the time they’re in the ninth grade … Phoenix to Atlanta, Orlando, New York, Dallas, Chicago. This is nothing new for them, and they play against each other.”
So when they get to college, “mostly sophomores, juniors, seniors aren’t better than the kids (they) played against in high school,” Sampson added. “The adjustment is easier.”
They’re also hardened, Sampson said, because of the constant exposure.
“We recruited Koa (Peat), and getting to know him, I always felt like I was talking to a senior,” Sampson said. “He’s so mature in every way.”
Not since the Big 12 became the Big 12 in 1996 has the conference ever produced four top-10 NBA draft picks in the same class. Much less four freshmen. Obviously the conference has grown to 16 teams, which increases the odds (especially adding a blue blood like Arizona), but still.
If either Peterson or Dybantsa go No. 1 — a near-certainty — they’d be the first Big 12 freshman to be selected with the top pick since OSU’s Cade Cunningham in 2021.
Kansas teammates Andrew Wiggins and Joel Embiid went Nos. 1 and 3 in 2014. OSU’s Marcus Smart, a sophomore, went No. 6 in that draft.
As Self was rattling off all of the Big 12’s elite freshman, he gave a shoutout to one of his own guys, Bryson Tiller, who’s flown under the radar. Which is hard to do for a Jayhawk freshman who’s made 29 starts and is averaging 8.2 points and 6.0 rebounds per game.
“Nobody even talks about him … because of everybody else,” Self said. “And there’s others that way, too. Tounde Yessoufou is really, really good. Most years he’d be considered one of the best one or two, three freshmen in our league, and people don’t talk about him as much because of the other dudes. The years that Burries and Koa and of course AJ and Kingston and Darryn (are having) … you could make a case those would be the best-five players going into any league.
“This is as good a recruiting job as our league’s ever done.”
Joe Mussatto is a sports columnist for The Oklahoman. Have a story idea for Joe? Email him at jmussatto@oklahoman.com. Support Joe’s work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today at subscribe.oklahoman.com.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Darryn Peterson, AJ Dybantsa highlight best-ever Big 12 freshmen class