Every year here at The Athletic, we start the men’s college basketball season by ranking the best players at each position in the country. It’s a fun entry as much as anything, giving fans a great idea of which players to look out for this season as play begins and everyone is inundated with too much hoops to watch all at once. Who do you need to know when you’re flicking on that random game on ESPN at 7 p.m. on a Thursday this November? Who will be the key pieces of each roster?
Here is our first entry — the top 20 guards, along with breakout players and key freshmen for the year. For the rest of this week we’ll list the top wings and bigs.
The definition between these positions is often somewhat fluid. For instance, I decided to slot guys like Hunter Maldonado, Baylor Scheierman, Isiaih Mosley, Matt Bradley and Colby Jones in with the wings even though they could go either way with how much they handle the ball. If you don’t see someone here that you think might be on that line, the odds are I classified them into the other pool. Additionally, Colorado State guard Isaiah Stevens was originally ranked No.
