look to youth. A quick scan of the PER leaders among freshmen shows a pretty impressive group of players.

Player

School

DeAndre Ayton

Arizona

Kenny Wooten

Washington

Romello White

Arizona State

Jalen Nowell

Washington

McKinley Wright IV

Colorado

Donnie Tillman

Utah

Justice Sueing

California

Kris Wilkes

UCLA

Remy Martin

Arizona State

Troy Brown

Oregon

Now, this list does not encapsulate the entirety of elite freshman talent in the Pac. Stanford alone has Daejon Davis, who has already won a Pac-12 Player of the Week award, and KZ Okpala, who despite not playing until the final non-conference game is already garnering calls to the Cardinal offices from NBA scouts. Speaking of Players of the Week, Arizona’s Dusan Ristic and Utah’s Justin Bibbins just ended a three-week stretch from the new year onward when a freshman was the conference player of the week. The most intriguing part of this list is that, asideCron, because he has posted a career high .207 ISO and is only one home run from tying a career high, but he also has career worsts with a 72.4% contact rate, 82.1% zone-contact rate, and 27% strikeout rate. We might be seeing why the Angels were always reluctant to make Cron their regular first baseman. His home run totals are puzzling since he has hit more groundballs than ever before, and his average launch angle is six degrees lower than it was last season. His .444 SLG and .330 wOBA are perfectly in line with his career averages so Cron is basically the exact same player that he was in Anahiem, he just had an extended hot stretch fueled by a 21.7% HR/FB ratio. He’s on the