Few NBA Draft prospects feel more cosmically linked than Maryland's Derik Queen and Georgia's Asa Newell.
Both are hometown kids who led their local schools to new, exciting heights. UGA made its first NCAA Tournament in a decade with Newell, who spent the first 10 years of his life in Athens. Queen, a Baltimore native, took Maryland to the Sweet 16 with a game-winning jumper that will live on in Terrapins lore.
You'd struggle to find more productive freshmen bigs in college basketball this season. Both Queen and Newell quickly emerged as leaders on their respective teams. And yet, despite their strong parallels and not-so-distant NBA futures, both occupy opposite sides of the skill spectrum.
Queen is all finesse — a stout, lumbering center who dances through the post like Alperen Sengun and scores with feather-soft touch at all three levels.
Newell is more of a blunt-force weapon. He can step out and hit 3s, but Newell isn't rifling creative passes or setting up the offense like Queen. He scores primarily on cuts, lobs, and putbacks, devouring the offensive glass and operating in perfect harmony with his point guard.
Both are projected first-round picks. Queen went to OKC with the No. 7 pick in FanSided's latest mock draft, while Newell went to the Hawks with the No. 25 pick. Newell has a much wider range, but there's a real chance he ends up right on Queen's heels in the lottery. Hell, maybe a team prefers him.
That leads us to the question at hand: which freshmen was more impressive this season?
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Derik Queen and Asa Newell both dominated college basketball in their own ways
The stats are mighty impressive on both sides.
Queen averaged 16.5 points, 9.0 rebounds, 1.9 assists, 1.1 blocks, and 1.1 steals on .526/.200/.766 splits in 30.4 minutes. Newell averaged 15.4 points, 6.4 rebounds, 0.9 assists, 1.0 block, and 1.0 steal on .543/.292/.748 splits in 29.0 minutes.
For all the "skillful" praise of Queen, Newell was the better long-range shooter, both in terms of volume and efficiency. Queen made some truly nuts-o passes over the course of the season, but he was also turnover prone, averaging more giveaways (2.4) than assists. Newell is not an advanced passer, but there is a certain stability to his run, jump, dunk approach to things.
All the advanced metrics, again, paint a razor-thin margin here. Newell ranked sixth among high-major freshmen in BPM (8.6). Queen ranked eighth (7.9). Newell's PER (26.1) barely outstripped Queen's (24.7), although that isn't the most reliable indicator.
Maryland was definitely the better team, but Queen was surrounded by a starting lineup so good it earned its own nickname, the 'Crab Five' — a reference to Michigan's famed 'Fab Five.' Newell was far less insulated at UGA. The Bulldogs went through their ups and downs, with four more losses on the season compared to Maryland, but the SEC was also much tougher than the Big Ten.
Queen got his one shining moment in March, whereas Newell's Bulldogs were ran out of the gym in the first round by Gonzaga. That feels like an unfair point of comparison, though. UGA picked up considerable momentum with a few late-season victories, including a home win over Florida to effectively secure their March Madness bid. If Georgia wasn't put up against the comically under-ranked Zags in round one, there's no reason UGA couldn't have won at least a game before bumping up against Houston.
The real meat of the argument here comes down to personal preference. There is no objectively "correct" answer, just different ways of parsing the same information. How does one's future, for example, factor into this decision? Queen feels like a much better NBA prospect, but does that mean he was the better college star this season? Not necessarily.
Newell was extremely dependable and consistent for the Bulldogs. He's a more stable defender than Queen, even if the latter was more prominent on the boards and in passing lanes. Newell's motor ran hot, he knew when and where to be on every possession, and did the small things at an incredibly high level.
Queen had more lapses in the small things department, but he was also infinitely more ambitious with his balletic drives, advanced live-dribble passes, and bully-ball post-ups. The Maryland frosh was able to stretch and stress a defense in ways Newell probably never will. He was electric in the NCAA Tournament, going well beyond the game-winner, and he often served as the orbital focus of Maryland's elite offense. Newell was more of a pure play-finisher. He made the occasional flashy pass or fluid, straight-line rim attack, but those weren't his bread and butter.
In the end, it feels like Queen has to be the answer — at least for me — if we are judging by how "impressive" a freshman was, which is a prompt open to myriad interpretations. Newell was right on Queen's level, though, and oftentimes above it. Both should have long NBA careers ahead of them.