Texas Basketball: 3 best players from Shaka Smart-era so far

2. Mohamed Bamba, Center

The train of highly touted big man that arrived on the Forty Acres and delivered one season solid continued during the 2017-18 campaign with seven-footer Mohamed Bamba. The former five-star recruit and 225 pound Harlem, NY, native took home a lot of honors and accolades during a one-and-done college career.

Bamba was a Wooden Award Finalist, and he was on every watch list that came out at the three key phases of the season. He was also an All-Big 12 Second Team honoree, and selected to the All-Big 12 Freshman Team and All-Big 12 Defensive Team.

What added to the impressive list of accomplishments for Bamba was the fact that he led the Big 12 in total rebounds and rebounds per game, blocks per game, rebounding rate, and defensive rating. He was also in the top 10 in the entire country in each of those stat categories, along with defensive box plus/minus and block rate.

Bamba played in 30 games during the 2017-18 season (starting in 29 of them). He averaged 12.9 points per game, 10.5 rebounds, 0.5 assists, 0.8 steals, and a whopping 3.7 blocks, while shooting 54.1 percent from the field.

As anticipated, Bamba was an advanced analytics darling. He registered a 118.5 offensive rating, 89.6 defensive rating, 11.2 box plus/minus rating, .212 win shares per 40 minutes, 4.8 total win shares, 28.3 player efficiency rating, and 59.3 true shooting percentage.