We kick off (or tip off, I suppose) our list with a trip to Bill Self’s first season at the helm. Keith Langford’s junior season was truly his breakout year. As a freshman, he was a sparkplug off the bench for the 2002 Final Four team, and was a solid third banana behind Nick Collison and Kirk Hinrich on the 2003 runner up team. But 2004 belonged to him and Wayne Simien.
Why he is this high
Langford’s offensive rating and 2-point percentage took a bit of a dip as a junior, but he took 30 more 3-pointers and got to the line a lot more that season.