The 2023-24 freshman class has gotten a considerable amount of attention this NCAA season, which is no surprise given the amount of hype it garnered during recruiting. Highly-touted players like JuJu Watkins and Hannah Hidalgo give the class instantly-recognizable names, and they’ve largely lived up to the expectations set during their first season in Division I.
That success has continued throughout the 2024 NCAA Tournament, and through the first two rounds, several big-name freshmen have played large roles for their respective programs. Of the freshmen who will be competing in this year’s Sweet 16, there are a handful that have been particularly impressive.
JuJu Watkins (USC Trojans)
ESPN HoopGurlz recruiting rank: No. 1
First, the most obvious freshman. Watkins has led the rebirth of a Trojans program that won its first Pac-12 Tournament since 2014, earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament and reached its highest ranking in the Associated Press Top 25 (No. 3) since the days of Cheryl Miller. She’s one of four finalists for the Naismith Player of the Year award, and two highly impressive NCAA Tournament games have shown why. Watkins scored a game-high 23 points and added six defensive stats in USC’s opening-round win over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and recorded…
