CBS Sports recently put together a list of predictions on who will be the top breakout stars of the 2020-21 college basketball season. The players on the list — Oregon's Chris Duarte, Virginia's Casey Morsell, Michigan State's Rocket Watts and Washington State's CJ Elleby — were all deserving, and might burst onto the scene to become some of the sport's best players in the near future.
One name omitted from the list was Michigan sophomore wing Franz Wagner, who proved to be one of the Big Ten and country's top freshmen a year ago, forwent the NBA Draft process this offseason and is primed to be a Big Ten Player of the Year candidate this upcoming season. Here's why he should have made the cut to be a breakout star candidate.
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His Breakout Began Last Season
After arriving to campus late in the summer (due to participating in the European Cup), the German suffered a right wrist fracture (his shooting hand) that held him out of the final practices leading up to the season and forced him to miss the club's first four games.
When he finally got to step on the court, he struggled to 6.0 points and 4.0 rebounds per contest in his first four outings, all against good competition. But Wagner improved game-by-game as the season wore on. In his next 11 games, he put up 11.6 points and 4.5 rebounds per, while shooting 41.5 percent from the field. He then averaged 13.3 points and 7.1 rebounds per game while shooting 50.4 percent from the field and 32.7 percent from long range over his final 12 outings.
The Big Ten All-Freshman Team honoree was already breaking out in the second half of last season. During Big Ten play, he led all freshmen in scoring (13 points per game) and shot an 62.2 percent on two-point shots, which was the third-best mark in the league.
He was becoming one of U-M's most consistent scoring, rebounding and defensive weapons, and that trend is expected to continue going forward into year two of his college basketball career.
His Outside Shooting Is Expected To Improve
Wagner is expected to take the next step this upcoming campaign, and one of the biggest areas in which he can raise his game is three-point shooting.
As we mentioned earlier, Wagner had to recover from a broken shooting wrist — not an easy task. Although he did have several games where he shot it well from beyond the arc (2-for-3 at Michigan State, 3-for-5 at Purdue, 4-for-8 at Ohio State) Wagner was not consistent from deep throughout his freshman season, and much of that can be attributed to not being able to shoot for several weeks while out with the injury, in addition to never getting back into his previous form with the long ball even when the wrist was healed.
