College basketball has 5,870 games scheduled for its season up until Selection Sunday. Entering Wednesday night, 3,062 games have been played, meaning the season is 52.2 percent complete. The fun news for hoopheads: national discussion around college basketball will only increase weekly from here on out. Bigger story lines, bigger games, unknown plot twists sure to snake through the next 10 weeks before Selection Sunday arrives.
But given that we have just crossed the halfway point, let's hand out some figurative hardware. CBS Sports' team of college basketball writers assembled and logged their votes for the standout players and coaches at the midway mark of the season. Here's who's been best in college basketball through the first half of the 2017-18 campaign. Check back in come March. We guarantee all of these names will not be in the same spots.
Player of the Year
 | Trae Young | Oklahoma Freshman | PG | 6-2 | 180 Key stats: 29.2 ppg | 10.1 apg | 44.9 FG% |
Thanks to players like Kevin Durant, Michael Beasley, Anthony Davis and Ben Simmons -- just to name a few -- we are programmed to never really be surprised by what a five-star prospect does in his first year of college, if only because we've seen greatness consistently and up close. And yet we know now that we hadn't seen it all. Because we'd never seen anything like Trae Young until this season. The 6-2 point guard is blowing everybody's minds while leading the nation in both points (29.2) and assists (10.1) per game. And the fact that he's doing it for a team ranked in the top five of the CBS Sports Top 25 (and one) means his stats aren't empty. Put simply, he's a statistical monster on an elite team. Put frankly, there's just no sensible alternative candidate, at this point, for National Player of the Year. — Gary Parrish
Freshman of the Year
| Trae Young | Oklahoma PG | 6-2 | 180 Key stats: 29.2 ppg | 10.1 apg | 44.9 FG% |
If he's POY, you know he's gotta be FOY. To those who follow the Frosh Watch weekly (I encourage you to do the same; it posts around lunchtime every Tuesday), you know this has been Young's award to grasp since the second week of the season. I refuse to say he can't lose it -- Deandre Ayton and Marvin Bagley are still in his rear-view -- but it's going to take a massive turn of events in order for that to happen. Young has become a superstar because Lon Kruger has entrusted him with running an offense, and the underdiscussed aspect of that is how amazing Young has been at it. He's a great distributor, plays with confidence, is a smart player, and all of these factors have allowed the veterans on the team to trust him all the more. Oklahoma finished the 2016-17 season with 11 wins. It's already at 13 now. Without Young, that's not the case. — Matt Norlander
Coach of the Year
 | Lon Kruger | Oklahoma 13-2, 3-1 Big 12 Rankings: No. 9 AP, coaches poll | No. 4 Top 25 (and one) |
The coach of the team from Norman, Okla. has given the keys to the freshman from Norman, Okla., and said, "Go." Oklahoma was picked to finished sixth in the Big 12 in the preseason. After beating Texas Tech on Tuesday, they're sitting at 13-2 overall, 3-1 in the Big 12, ranked ninth in the nation. If you're picking a team that could end Kansas' 13-year streak of Big 12 championships, it's either Oklahoma or West Virginia. It's not that Kruger has rolled the ball out and let Trae Young run the show. He's constructed his young team's offense around his point guard, and made Oklahoma the third-fastest-paced team in the nation. — Reid Forgrave
Midseason All-Americans
 | Jalen Brunson | Villanova Junior | G | 6-3 | 190 Key stats: 19.3 ppg | 5.2 apg | 58.4 FG% |
A unanimous pick from the four of us here. It's not just because he's the top guy on the No. 1-ranked team, either. Brunson's offensive efficiency has been overshadowed by Young's gaudy all-around stats. Here's what's ridiculous: Brunson has led Villanova back to the top of the polls while continuing to play on a different plane from every other player in the sport. His offensive rating at KenPom.com is 141.7, which is outrageously good considering his usage rating is 24.8 percent. There is no one close to Brunson in college basketball -- not even Young -- who is scoring that efficiently while being responsible for at least a quarter of his team's offensive production. His averages: 19.4 points, 5.2 assists, 3.3 rebounds, and shooting 59 percent. At this point, Brunson is a firm but not-too-far off No. 2 pick for POY for me. — MN
 | Tra Holder | Arizona State Senior | Guard | 6-1 | 180 Key stats: 21.4 ppg | 4.2 apg | 45.2 FG% |
Holder beat out Notre Dame's Bonzie Colson for the final spot on our A-A list. Why? Arizona State's hot start is part of it, sure, but if you've only been paying attention to the Sun Devils' record, Bobby Hurley's fiery demeanor and ASU's high-scoring offense, know that Holder is the centerpiece. He's averaging 21.4 points, 5.0 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.8 steals and shooting 44 percent from 3-point range. The Sun Devils are 13-2, ranked 11th in the AP Poll and were one of the three or four biggest stories of the first half of the season. Given Holder's role as the alpha, and his consistent play, it's only right to have ASU represented on our All-American list at the halfway point. — MN
| Trae Young | Oklahoma Freshman PG | 6-2 | 180 Key stats: 29.2 ppg | 10.1 apg | 44.9 FG% |
Young is playing a season for the ages. No player has ever led college basketball in both points and assists. After Young's 27-point, 9-assist performance Tuesday night in a win over Texas Tech, Young is averaging 29.2 points and 10.1 assists, and is firmly leading the nation in both categories. Moreover, he's turned a young Oklahoma squad that many thought would be battling for even a tournament bid into a Big 12 force. It's exceedingly rare for a college basketball player in the one-and-done era to capture the imagination of the American sporting public the way Young has. Here's to his remarkable first half continuing deep into March. — RF
 | Marvin Bagley III, Duke |
Bagley could still be playing high school basketball in California right now if he wanted and never reclassified, which is incredible considering there's nothing any college players can do with him. The 6-11 forward is averaging 22.5 points and 11.5 rebounds for a Duke team that's 13-2 with wins over Michigan State, Florida State and Florida. He has 12 double-doubles.and three 30-15 games while shooting 64.1 percent from the field. So Bagley is outperforming most reasonable preseason expectations. Because even though folks were high on him, I'm not sure many anticipated him being this dominant this consistently before ultimately leaving to be a top-five pick in the 2018 NBA Draft. — GP
 | Deandre Ayton, Arizona |
Ayton is averaging 20.4 points and 11.6 rebounds for an Arizona team that's won nine of its past 10 games and still, according to most metrics, projected to win the Pac-12 even after an eighth-place finish in the Battle 4 Atlantis. The 7-1 forward's career-high in points is 29. His career-high in rebounds is 19. He's shooting 62.5 percent from the field despite shooting just 33.3 percent from 3-point range and is a lock to be a top-five pick in the 2018 NBA Draft. The only question about Ayton's immediate future is whether he can help Sean Miller make the first Final Four of his coaching career. — GP
Most Improved Player
 | Luke Maye, North Carolina |
A career role player who averaged 3.5 points and 2.8 rebounds in his first two seasons at North Carolina, Luke Maye's been the best player for the reigning national champion Tar Heels in his breakout junior campaign. He's carried UNC to a 13-4 record, averaging a team-high 18.2 points and 10.8 rebounds per game while putting up career-best shooting numbers from the floor (50.8 percent) and from beyond the arc (49 percent). — Kyle Boone
