Welcome back to the Frosh Watch, our weekly ranking of the five most impressive freshmen in college basketball. CBS Sports has once again teamed up with the United States Basketball Writers Association and its Wayman Tisdale Freshman of the Year Award to present this every-Tuesday feature. Each week we'll start by announcing the national Freshman of the Week honoree. The cycle for FOTW runs Tuesday-Monday.
Week ending Mon., Dec. 19: Brandon Miller. (6-9, 200, Forward, Antioch, Tenn. [Cane Ridge HS])
There were 13 players in the 2022 class ranked ahead of five-star prospect and Alabama freshman Brandon Miller. None, though, have been nearly as impactful and productive as has Miller for the Crimson Tide this season.
Six weeks into the season, Miller has been a mainstay at the top of our rankings of college basketball's best newbies and that continues this week after putting up 24 and 36 points in two outings this last week against Memphis and Gonzaga, respectively. He's now scoring 3.1 points per game more than the next closest freshman in the sport, leading all freshmen in 3-point field-goal percentage (among those with taken 70 or more attempts) and leading all SEC players regardless of classification in scoring, too.
Simply put: there aren't 13 freshmen in college basketball that have been better than Brandon Miller has been at Alabama this season. There aren't even 13 total players who are having a better season than him.
So of course coming off yet another productive week, he (finally and deservedly) gets the nod as the CBS Sports/USBWA Freshman of the Week, edging out a loaded class that includes South Carolina's Gregory "GG" Jackson II, Baylor's Keyonte George, Duke's Kyle Filipowski, Arkansas' Nick Smith and others. Unsurprisingly, he remained top dog in our season-long rankings, too.