The turn of the calendar year means the turn of the college basketball season from non-conference to conference play and along with the roughly 15 games (give or take a few due to cancellations) under the belt, there is now a sizable sample size to make an update to the Big Board. Duke's Paolo Banchero and Gonzaga's Chet Holmgren entered the season as the obvious front-runners for the No. 1 spot but as we put a bow on non-conference play, it's been Auburn's Jabari Smith who has made the climb from his previous ranking at No. 4 to the top. Smith wasn't the only one to make a splash through the first half of the regular season either. I love what we've seen from guys like Johnny Davis (Wisconsin), Kendall Brown (Baylor), Ben Mathurin (Arizona), MarJon Beauchamp (G-League Ignite) and Keegan Murray (Iowa); they'll be in lottery contention come June. Those players coming along has watered down the notion that the draft dropped off a cliff after No. 7 or 8.
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