College basketball preview | Top 100 returning players

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Oct. 15—The first games of the 2023-24 men’s college basketball season tip off in less than a month.

AP Top 25 voter and Illinois beat writer Scott Richey is celebrating the month of October like he always does. Previewing the coming season. First up? The Top 100 returning players — that’s the increasingly rare same faces, same places in the transfer portal era (More, C-9-10):

1. Zach Edey

Purdue senior center

Edey put up historic numbers last season (22.3 points per game on 60.7 percents shooting plus 12.9 rebounds and 2.1 blocks per game), as he swept his way to consensus national player of the year honors. While the 7-foot-4 center didn’t get any less dominant in the offseason, the Boilermakers might actually be better off if his supporting cast ate into his production a little.

2. Tyler Kolek

Marquette senior guard

“Kolek played off the ball a lot as a freshman at George Mason, but when Shaka Smart and his staff were hired at Marquette in 2021, they recruited him from the transfer portal and handed him the ball. Kolek is an incredible pick-and-roll player with elite passing vision. He struggled shooting the ball his first season at MU (28.1 percent on three-pointers) but really improved last season (39.8 percent on threes), and that opened up even more passing lanes for him. Smart has said that he expects Kolek to shoot even better this season.” — Ben Steele, Milwaukee (Wis.) Journal Sentinel

3. Kyle Filipowski

Duke sophomore forward

Filipowski likely would have been selected in the first round of the 2023 NBA draft had he not withdrawn to spend a second (and likely final) season at Duke. Now the Blue Devils’ big man is projected as a potential preseason All-American as a sophomore following ACC Freshman of the Year honors after averaging 15.1 points and nine rebounds.

4. Armando Bacot

North Carolina graduate forward

Bacot channeled his inner Lovie Smith when decreeing that former teammate Caleb Love “is like the wife you divorced, but you both still have a kid together.”…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/college-basketball-preview-top-100-145600765.html

Author : The News-Gazette, Champaign-Urbana, Ill.

Publish date : 2023-10-15 14:56:00

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