The 2019-20 season saw the continued high-level play from Kansas, the building of a powerhouse in Baylor, and the continued development of Texas Tech and West Virginia. The new season will bring a new crop of freshmen and a renewed sense that Big 12 Basketball will have more than a handful of nationally-ranked teams.
Everybody knows the top of Big 12 Basketball was talented with the likes of the Kansas Jayhawks and the Baylor Bears reigning atop the national polls throughout the season. As the Jayhawks and Bears went, so did the Big 12. The Big 12 was the second-ranked conference based on the RPI this past season and they were closer to first-place Big East than third-place PAC-12.
The Big 12 is going to look different this season as there will be a number of moving parts within the conference. The conference will be welcoming thirty-five new recruits, four of them are five-star players coming out of high school.
These recruits are going to have a lot of room to make an impact during the season, with the entire All-Big 12 first team either graduating or being drafted as an underclassman. The landscape of the impact players will be changing as well. At the conclusion of the 2019-20 season, four of the five members of the All-Freshman team were guards. Of the 15 members that made up the three Big12 teams, ten of them played in the backcourt.
The degree in which each freshman impacts the Big12 is dependant upon a number of factors. First and foremost is their skill level, something that none of these players lack. Secondly, is the opportunity, some rosters are filled with more talented players than others, and as a coach, the player with experience is often the better option. The third is how the freshman can be integrated into the offense, some freshmen do not get the number of touches needed to make an impact because they need to play out of position or a teammate has a similar skill set.
These factors are the foundation for determining the 15 freshmen that are going to make the most impact in the Big 12. Since anybody could look up a list and see the highest-ranked freshmen, the reasons that they will make an impact will be explored. As a bonus, I have ranked them from fifteen to one to provide fodder to be critiqued.