We looked through the greatest freshman seasons we could find, including freshman who finished in the top 50 at www.valueaddbasketball.com and lists of top freshman seasons and discovered that the majority of great freshman seasons were accomplished by players who turned 19 before they started their freshman season. So the majority total is ZERO.
And then you have the rare player who starts playing at 17 - two years younger than most of the all-time great freshmen.
Tim Duncan showed up on Wake Forest campus as a 17-year-old in 1993 and scored 860 points by the time he turned 19, and on Saturday Markus Howard celebrated his birthday by torching Creighton to bring his total to 1,016 points. We know no one has topped that total in a single freshman season, so we will leave it up to others to find someone else who came to a campus as a 17-year-old and put up two years of scoring to get to 1,000 by their 19th birthday, but for now Howard is the best ever that we can find.
| Rank | Player | 19th birthday | by 19th | Team | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Markus Howard | 3/3/2018 | 1,016 | Marquette | thru sophomore season finale |
| 2 | Kevin Durant | 11/29/2007 | 903 | Texas | full freshman season |
| 3 | Tim Duncan | 4/25/1995 | 860 | Wake Forest | full freshman and soph season |
| 4 | Wayman Tisdale | 6/9/1983 | 810 | Oklahoma | full freshman season |
| 5 | Carmelo Anthony | 5/29/2003 | 778 | Syracuse | full freshman season |
| 6 | Steph Curry | 3/14/2007 | 700 | Davidson | day after birthday added 30 in loss to MD to end freshman season |
| 7 | Jabari Parker | 3/15/2014 | 633 | Duke | 37 points after birthday |
| 8 | James Harden | 8/26/2008 | 605 | Arizona St. | full freshman season |
| 9 | Bradley Beal | 6/26/2012 | 546 | Florida | full freshman season |
| 10 | Marvin Bagley III | 3/14/2018 | 539 | Duke | still counting until birthday |
| 11 | Jared Sullinger | 3/4/2011 | 514 | Ohio St. | 121 after birthday |
| 12 | Magic Johnson | 8/14/1978 | 511 | Michigan State | full freshman season |
| 13 | Jordan Adams | 7/8/2013 | 505 | UCLA | full freshman season |
| 14 | Malik Monk | 2/4/2017 | 503 | Kentucky | 251 after birthday |
| 15 | Patrick Beverley | 7/12/2007 | 485 | Arkansas | full freshman season |
| 16 | Anthony Davis | 3/11/2012 | 485 | Kentucky | full freshman season |
| 17 | Chase Budinger | 5/22/2007 | 484 | Arizona | full freshman season |
| 18 | Michael Kidd-Gilchrist | 9/26/2012 | 476 | Kentucky | full freshman season |
| 19 | Miles Bridges | 3/21/2017 | 473 | Michigan State | full freshman season |
| 20 | Chris Bosh | 24-Mar-03 | 466 | Georgia Tech | scored 19 more in NIT loss to Bobby Knight's Texas Tech after birthday |
| 21 | Tyus Jones | 5/10/2015 | 461 | Duke | full freshman season |
| 22 | Marcus Smart | 3/6/2013 | 433 | Oklahoma St. | 74 after birthday |
| 23 | DeJuan Blair | 4/22/2008 | 429 | Pittsburgh | full freshman season |
| 24 | Justise Winslow | 3/26/2015 | 425 | Duke | 67 after birthday |
| 25 | Gordon Hayward | 3/23/2009 | 420 | Butler | full freshman season |
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