Juzang is more a scorer than shooter, but if he can become someone comfortably described as a shooter, the Bruins will be tough to stop. So he’s done it in the biggest games, but he’ll belong here if he can do it night after night, with the glamour of March far removed and defenses keying on him relentlessly. Juzang got there in the 2021 NCAA Tournament, but was it permanent or just a quick stopover? Juzang actually topped 25 points more times in the NCAAs (three in six games) than the regular season (two in 24). Why he’s here: It’s a long way from regular contributor to first-open star in college basketball. MORE: Cockburn to sit three games to start year If he does all of which he is capable, he could become college basketball’s best player this winter. It means improving his footwork so he can defend on the perimeter and improving his arsenal of offensive moves. That means building stamina – and avoiding foul trouble – so he can go more than 27 minutes a game. He didn’t return to Champaign to stagnate. Why he’s here: Cockburn could replicate his sophomore season and be guaranteed to find a place on this list of honored players. Because they’re still here, it crowded out some very capable players who easily could have been selected, as well. It was not hard to include them on the preseason All-America squad for 2021-22. A fourth was a power forward who operated primarily in the low post. Of the 15 players on the 2020-21 Sporting News All-America team, only four returned for the coming season. This was wonderful news for the college game, better still for those teams that had a special big man on their 2020-21 teams. The league that once was patrolled by Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Shaquille O’Neal selected one young man who might be described as a true center in the first round of its most recent player draft, and that guy, Evan Mobley, of course is playing power forward for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
It is one of the peculiarities of the modern basketball scene that there are, in a sense, more high-profile centers in college basketball than there are in the NBA.