2021-22 CBS Sports college basketball preseason awards: Our player, coach and freshman of the year

We have now hit the section the place we should begin handing out the massive (digital) {hardware}. It is that almost all cherished of moments: the preseason awards! Right here at CBS Sports activities, we concentrate on the massive three: Participant, freshman and coach of the yr. When you’re enthusiastic about a wider take a look at the very best gamers, our All-America groups are ready for you right here. 

This is how we landed on the winners: The collective CBS Sports activities faculty basketball braintrust of writers and analysts individually submitted ballots and provided their prime three selections for every of the classes under. This yr did not appear as tough as some prior to now, and that is with good cause: keep in mind that 2021-22 shall be a season through which there are extra returning gamers than regular within the fashionable period. The NCAA has allowed all scholarship athletes an additional yr of competitors on account of COVID-19 turning all the sports activities world on its facet for a yr. 

Faculty basketball’s season begins in 19 days. This is the place expectations nationally are the best within the sport. — Matt Norlander

Notice: The CBS Sports activities Preseason particular person awards had been voted on by faculty basketball writers at CBSSports.com and 247Sports in addition to broadcasters and analysts from CBS and CBS Sports activities Community.  

CBS Sports activities 2021-22 Preseason Participant of the 12 months

Drew Timme, Gonzaga

Drew Timme was the main scorer and rebounder for a Gonzaga group that performed in final season’s title recreation of the NCAA Tournament and completed 31-1. The 6-foot-10 ahead is the one CBS Sports activities First Group All-American from final season who returned to highschool for this season. So it should not actually come as a shock that he is the selection for the CBS Sports activities Preseason Participant of the 12 months. 

Merely put, Timme is a superb faculty participant on an excellent faculty group — particularly the group that’s the betting-favorite to win the 2022 NCAA Event. He averaged 19.0 factors and seven.0 rebounds in 28.2 minutes per recreation final season whereas taking pictures 65.5 p.c from the sphere — and he was even higher within the NCAA Event, the place he averaged 20.3 factors and led the Zags to victories over North Florida, Oklahoma, Creighton, USC and UCLA earlier than they had been upset within the championship recreation by Scott Drew’s Baylor Bears. 

If Timme produces at an identical stage this season, and Gonzaga stays at or close to the highest of the game, he’ll have an excellent likelihood to hitch Adam Morrison as the one Zags to ever win a Nationwide Participant of the 12 months award. — Gary Parrish

It is time to give some like to the gamers with the most important expectations heading into the season. We focus on the 2021-22 CBS Sports activities massive preseason awards and three All-America groups on the most recent version of the Eye on Faculty Basketball podcast. 

CBS Sports activities 2021-22 Preseason Coach of the 12 months

Matt Painter, Purdue

Whereas extra animated Huge Ten friends akin to Tom Izzo, Mark Turgeon, Fran McCaffery, Juwan Howard and Brad Underwood are likely to get extra nationwide consideration, Purdue coach Matt Painter has quietly guided the Boilermakers to an unimaginable 91-40 mark in Huge Ten play over the past seven seasons. The lengthy underrated Purdue coach is now getting his due because the Boilermakers enter the 2021-22 season with a roster able to competing for this system’s first Last 4 look since 1980.

Final season, Painter guided a group relying closely on 4 freshmen to a double-bye within the Huge Ten Event and a No. 4 seed within the NCAA Event. That younger group is a veteran group now, with mainly each key contributor again and a pair of four-star freshmen becoming a member of the combo. Within the period of mass transfers, this roster’s mixture of continuity, depth and star energy is a testomony to Painter’s chops as a coach as he enters his seventeenth season main his alma mater.

Painter is a four-time Huge Ten Coach of the 12 months winner, and he gained the NABC Nationwide Coach of the 12 months honor in 2019. But, he nonetheless appears undervalued nationally, maybe partially as a result of he is locked in at his alma mater and hasn’t reached a Last 4. However do not be stunned if he provides to his awards assortment this season and cements his place as an elite coach throughout the sport’s altering vanguard. — David Cobb

CBS Sports activities 2021-22 Preseason Freshman of the 12 months

Paolo Banchero, Duke

With the No. 1 recruit from final yr’s class (Chet Holmgren) becoming a member of a star-studded Gonzaga roster, No. 2 general recruit Paolo Banchero figures to be in line to step up as the game’s brightest younger star at Duke. The Blue Devils misplaced their prime two scorers from final season and with a few of the playmaking gone besides, Banchero’s going to be a do-it-all weapon for a top-15 Duke group. We’re anticipating him to create, to attain, and to achieve success in nearly every thing he is requested to do because the alpha for this group. – Kyle Boone