Lonzo Ball and De'Aaron Fox are two of this year's freshman point guards whom NBA scouts and college fans cannot stop raving about, and we'll get to watch them go head-to-head Saturday when No. 1 Kentucky hosts No. 11 UCLA in a battle between two of the most efficient offenses in the nation.
Through the start of play Thursday, eight teams ranked in the top 12 in both raw and adjusted offensive efficiency, according to KenPom.com: North Carolina, Virginia, Notre Dame, Creighton, Saint Mary's, Villanova, Kentucky and UCLA.
The first five teams on that list have consistently boasted efficient offenses under their current head coaches and have the luxury of veteran backcourts in which both the primary point guard and shooting guard are either juniors or seniors. The sixth is the reigning national champion who brought back its two most important players.
Long story short, it's no surprise that they're great at putting the ball in the hoop.
But Kentucky and UCLA are led by freshman point guards who aren't supposed to be this good this fast.
No matter how great they're expected to be in the long run, freshman point guards commit careless turnovers and make ill-advised decisions in November.
D'Angelo Russell had six points and seven turnovers in the second game of his collegiate career. It took a few years and a few injuries before Kris Dunn finally started to live up to the hype. And Kentucky fans will remember all too well the early struggles for stud recruits Brandon Knight, Marquis Teague and Andrew Harrison.
That's not meant to be a knock on any of those guys. It's just the way it is. When a first-year player is handed the keys to the offense, there's a learning curve.
Or so we thought.
Ball and Fox are rewriting that script and inadvertently setting unrealistic expectations for the next few batches of freshman point guards as a result.
Fellow freshman Malik Monk is getting most of Kentucky's national attention as the leading scorer who drained seven three-pointers in the Champions Classic win over Michigan State, but Fox has been sensational. Despite shooting just 2-of-15 from three-point range on the season, he has scored at least a dozen points in each Wildcats game and is averaging 7.6 assists, 5.7 rebounds and 2.0 steals per game.
He even had a triple-double in Monday night's 115-69 annihilation of Arizona State—just the second triple-double in Kentucky history, if you can believe that.
During Tuesday night's game between Duke and Michigan State, ESPN's Jay Bilas declared Fox and Monk "the best pair of freshman guards I can ever remember."
Considering they can do things like this in the middle of a game, I am more than inclined to agree with that assessment:
Even more impressive than the highlight-reel dunk or the history-making single-game box score is that with Fox leading the way for just less than 31 minutes per night, Kentucky's team turnover percentage is the lowest it has ever been in the KenPom era. And, frankly, it's not even close. The Wildcats are at 14.9 percent, and their lowest turnover rate before that was 16.1 during the 2010-11 season. (Shoutout to Josh "Jorts" Harrellson.)
Fox has a positive assist-to-turnover ratio in each of his seven games and has a 2.79 ratio thus far this season.
As great as Fox has been, though, Ball has been otherworldly, averaging 9.6 assists per game and 4.28 assists per turnover.
He isn't just some distributor who simply benefits from good shooters around him, either. Ball is also UCLA's best perimeter defender and its most athletic player, as summed up by this interception returned for a dunk:
UCLA's 6'6" point guard has already thrown down 11 dunks this season and is averaging 4.9 rebounds per game. It will only be a matter of time before he joins Fox on the short list of freshman point guards to record a triple-double.
Save for Wednesday night's blowout of UC Riverside in which he had 13 assists and bothered to attempt only two shots other than the above dunk, Ball has scored at least a baker's dozen in every game. The Bruin has an unorthodox hitch in his shot, but whatever works, right? He's shooting 47.4 percent from three-point range and 69.7 percent from inside the arc.
To properly grasp Ball's value on this team, though, watch how—what's the opposite of crisp?—soggy UCLA's offense looks when he's not on the court.
College basketball doesn't track plus-minus, so it's impossible to statistically compare Ball to other point guards in this regard. However, one five-minute sequence in a recent game is all it takes to prove this point. Ball played 36 minutes in the 74-67 win over Texas A&M in the Wooden Legacy championship game, but two of his four minutes on the bench nearly cost the Bruins the title.
They were down by three midway through the second half when they went on a 10-0 run fueled by five points, one assist and one block by Ball. When the Aggies called a timeout to stop the bleeding, UCLA head coach Steve Alford took the opportunity to give Ball a quick break. But it took all of 46 seconds for A&M to go on a 7-0 run of its own thanks to a pair of bad turnovers and poor defensive rotation on the perimeter.
Ball had barely sat down on the bench before Alford sent him back to the scorer's table to play Superman yet again. Given how poorly that sequence went, it's hard to justify ever taking Ball out of a close game, provided he has the stamina for it and isn't saddled with foul trouble.
As far as his head-to-head matchup with Fox is concerned, it's gonna be lit.
Both UCLA and Kentucky play at a lightning pace, particularly on offense, where they each rank among the seven fastest in the country, according to KenPom. The Wildcats are averaging 95.6 points per game, and they're the lower-scoring of the two teams. The Bruins are at 97.
And let's not forget about the recent history between these programs. Granted, Ball and Fox had nothing to do with these games, but Kentucky embarrassed UCLA two years ago in an 83-44 blowout, followed by the Bruins returning the favor by ending the Wildcats' perfect start to the 2015-16 season with an 87-77 upset.
Kentucky has been the much better team on the defensive end of the court this season, and it is a home game for the Wildcats. They should be favored by a significant margin in this rubber match. But only a madman would bet against a Ball-led offense right now.
The lone prediction we'll offer on this one is that you're going to want to watch this game again later. Make sure you have enough space on the DVR and settle in for one heck of a spectacle.
Stats are courtesy of KenPom.com and Sports-Reference.com. Recruiting information is courtesy of Scout.
Kerry Miller covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @kerrancejames.