Now that we’ve had some time to let the basketball season settle, I’m going to start looking back at the year that was on a player-by-player basis. I’ll begin on a positive note with freshman big man DJ Funderburk.
It’s difficult to figure how a first-year big man is going to perform at the high-major level, even a first-year big man who was a top-100 recruit. Guys respond differently when they go from being able to dominate on physical talent alone in high school to not being able to do that on a regular basis in college.
Funderburk has plenty of work to do still, but there’s no doubt that he had a (perhaps surprisingly) good season in year one.