Nico Mannion, Josh Green, Remy Martin on top-100 college player lists

Players on the ASU and Arizona men’s basketball teams are garnering national attention as the season gets underway.

SB Nation ranked the top 100 players in men’s college basketball for the 2019-20 season. For ASU, guard Remy Martin made the cut at No. 94. On Arizona, freshmen Nico Mannion and Josh Green were on the list at No. 15 and 61, respectively.

Other websites’ rankings also included those three players. NBC Sports had Mannion at 37, Green at 80 and Martin at 88, while CBS Sports placed Mannion at 27, Green at 70 and Martin at 92.

Martin is a returning Sun Devils guard whose energy and defense led to offensive opportunities. He sparked runs against top competition as ASU made back-to-back NCAA Tournaments.

From CBS Sports’ Kyle Boone:

Leading returning Pac-12 player in assists. Martin made marked improvements as a passer and decision-maker last season. He’s the most important returning player for an Arizona State team seeking to earn a third consecutive NCAA Tournament bid.

As one of the longest-tenured Sun Devils, Martin’s continued production will be vital as ASU heads back toward its “Guard U” style.

That’ll be the focus in Tempe. But nationally, all eyes will be on Tucson and Arizona’s highly-touted freshman guards.

Green is a high-flying five-star player who helped lead IMG Academy of Florida to a GEICO Nationals Championship, which is essentially the high school national title game composed of eight of the best teams in the nation. He averaged 20 points, seven assists and five rebounds a game.

SB Nation writer Mike Rutherford writes that “Green is going to get his fair share of headlines during the season as well. The Australian native is an off the charts athlete who has the potential to be the perfect running mate with Mannion in transition.”

Green and Mannion have already shown they’re good running mates, as they played together at West Coast Elite UAA, an AAU basketball team.

It is expected that Arizona will once again be an elite program behind these two. Mannion led Pinnacle High School in Phoenix to back-to-back championships and averaged more than 30 points and six assists per game.

From NBC Sports’ Rob Dauster:

Mannion became the first five-star commit to pledge to Arizona after the program was caught up in the middle of an FBI investigation into corruption in the sport. Mannion is a 6-foot-3 point guard with good vision, good feel and a knack for making the right play. He’s everything that you want out of a point guard at the college level, and he has the talent to one day play his way to the NBA.

Arizona was one of several programs to have two players make the list. Others include Pac-12 programs Colorado and Washington.

Five teams had three players on the list: Duke, Florida, Kansas, Kentucky and Michigan State.

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