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Rob Ferguson-USA TODAY Sports

It’s award season, and it’s time to remind everyone what we seem to forget in the preseason.

Upperclassmen usually are the best players in this sport.

Sure, freshmen have had a larger impact in the one-and-done era, but when it comes to end-of-season awards, the upperclassmen still dominate.

Only twice have freshmen won the Naismith Award, and a senior has won the last three. That streak should move to four soon with Villanova’s Josh Hart and Kansas’ Frank Mason III as the two favorites.

No one would have expected Mason to begin the year.

The preseason rankings featured Duke and Kentucky at the top. To the credit of college basketball experts, Duke’s Grayson Allen, a junior, was the popular pick for preseason National Player of the Year. So we at least favored an older guy. But the killer freshmen classes at Duke and UK are a big reason why those two programs topped the polls.

While UK’s freshman backcourt lived up to the hype and UCLA freshman Lonzo Ball transformed the Bruins, most of the teams at the top of the polls now are led by upperclassmen.

And the Bleacher Report award winners, especially the pick for National Player of the Year, should serve as reminders that the best players in college hoops don’t always have five stars next to their name when they arrive on campus.