BIG EAST
Stephon Castle (Photo: Dylan Buell, Getty)
Leader at the turn: Stephon Castle (UConn): For the most part, the races for Conference Freshman of the Year are still pretty close and open to debate. This is not the case in the Big East. After dealing with injury issues early in the season, Castle is leading all Big East freshmen in scoring (11.7 points per game), rebounds (4.7) and assists (3.3). Not only that, he’s got a comfortable lead in each category.
The race is not even close. Castle is doing it on a Huskies team that has a very real shot at repeating as National Champions. Some five-star prospects don’t live up to the advance billing but Castle has been all of that and then more.
Names to Know:
Trey Green (Xavier)
Brady Dunlap (St. John's)
Castle has been so much better than any other freshman in the Big East that it would be disingenuous to call anybody else a contender. Are there some other promising freshmen? Sure. But it’s hard to imagine that anybody – media or coach – is writing in a name other than Castle for the FOY award at this point.
The next highest scorer, per BartTorvik.com, is Xavier’s
Trey Green who is averaging 6.9 point per game, but does have the single-game high for first-year players in the league with his 23-point outburst against Providence. The only other Big East first-year scorer over 5.0 points per game is St. John's
Brady Dunlap.