The college basketball season is coming ever closer. Among 351 Division I teams and over 30 conferences which will put teams in the NCAA Tournament, a few teams will stand out as members of the Final Four. A few players will stand out – not necessarily as the best of the best, but as players who are returning for second (or third or fourth) seasons with their teams but have not yet statistically flourished. These players are called breakout candidates for the coming season. Which ones are primed to bust loose and truly solidify their collegiate careers?
Mikal Bridges, Villanova Wildcats
The box score shows that Bridges has not yet announced himself as a noteworthy college player, but Bridges did contribute some hugely important hustle plays and an occasionally significant basket to Villanova’s national championship run last March. The Wildcats lost a few graduating seniors, but they are grooming players to step into the core rotation and take their place. Coach Jay Wright has shown great deftness and skill in formulating a team of multi-position players who are agile enough to take on different roles and create a very seamless style of basketball with a deep roster. It is within this structure that Bridges can make the leap from a fringe player to someone who can regularly score and defend for the Wildcats. He’ll definitely average over 10 points per game this coming college basketball season.
Jevon Carter, West Virginia Mountaineers
There are a few teams in the country which are well known for turning obscure players into productive players, regardless of whether those players make a big national splash. One of them is West Virginia, where coach Bob Huggins has established an uncanny ability to take players with modest skills and refine them into substantial producers. West Virginia becomes a bunch of worker bees who somehow find ways to score, rebound, and defend well enough to become a formidable team. The superstar-less Mountaineers finished second in the Big 12 a season ago. It was hard to name a nationally-known player on the team, but the collective managed to do extremely well in the regular season. This coming season, Carter should be the primary beneficiary among all others on the WVU roster in terms of Huggins’ magic touch with player development.
West Virginia is No. 20 in the AP Top 25 preseason poll and a little bit higher – at No. 18 – in the USA Today poll.
Jalen Adams, Connecticut Huskies
The young Adams hit the 70-foot shot to save his team from an overtime loss to Cincinnati in the quarterfinals of the American Athletic Conference Tournament last March. Now comes a season in which Adams is definitely expected to play a much larger role on a team which is supposed to reach the NCAA Tournament. If Bridges and Carter are likely bets to bust out all over and make a significant mark upon their teams this college basketball season, Adams belongs in the same category.
Connecticut will begin the season as the No. 18 team in the AP preseason rankings and No. 16 in the USA Today polls.
Markel Crawford, Memphis Tigers
The fact that Memphis has experienced a coaching change, from Josh Pastner to Tubby Smith, gives a lot of the returning Tigers a great chance to become breakout players. Crawford is the one with the most upside. Memphis had become known over the past few years as a team which had a lot of talent and potential, but which didn’t generally put the pieces together on a consistent basis. The Tigers should begin to shed that label and Crawford should become the chief beneficiary.
Matthew Fisher-Davis, Vanderbilt Commodores
The coaching change from Kevin Stallings (who is now at the University of Pittsburgh) to Bryce Drew could unlock Fisher-Davis’ talents. Vanderbilt drifted through portions of the past season and was highly fortunate to get into the NCAA Tournament. If Fisher-Davis is pushed hard by Drew and the new coaching staff, his career could begin to fulfill its promise. It didn’t really shift into high gear last season. The coming college basketball season can make up for lost opportunities.
Vanderbilt is not in the Top 25 of the preseason polls but they did get one vote in the Associated Press Top 25.
