Wayman Tisdale Set The Standard for College Basketball Freshmen Like Cooper Flagg
Before Cooper Flagg, Anthony Davis, Kevin Durant or Carmelo Anthony, Wayman Tisdale established an unprecedented standard for freshman stars in college basketball.
Any effect an injury sustained during the ACC Tournament didn’t hinder Cooper Flagg in his pursuit of joining exclusive company in 2025. Having already won ACC Player of the Year and garnered unanimous 1st Team All-American honors, Flagg could join the elite fraternity of freshmen to win National Player of the Year and join Anthony Davis as the only freshmen to claim both the Player of the Year award and a national championship. His games of 14 points, seven rebounds, and five assists against Mount St. Mary’s and 18 points, nine rebounds, and six assists helped Duke cruise to the East Region Sweet 16.
Next up for the Blue Devils is Arizona, an opponent that provided Flagg with one of his first opportunities to justify the overwhelming preseason hype that preceded his arrival. He had 24 points, seven rebounds, three assists, and three blocks in a dominant showing at McKale Center in November.
Another honor Flagg is sure to claim is the Wayman Tisdale Award, named for a trailblazer deserving of recognition for his own remarkable freshman season — the standard for all first-year stars to follow.
Whenever the topic of all-time great freshman seasons in college basketball comes up, the first name that should probably be mentioned is Wayman Tisdale. To deem the Oklahoma Sooners product the gold standard for first-year players isn’t hyperbole, nor is it all that subjective, given that the honor bestowed by the USBWA National Freshman of the Year literally bears his name.
The USBWA rechristened the award in 2010, a year after Tisdale died of complications from a cancerous cyst discovered when he injured his knee in 2007.
When the organization announced its decision, Tisdale’s Sooners coach Billy Stubbs told The Oklahoman, “This could quickly be considered the nation's most valuable player award.” And indeed, in the years since the rebranding, Anthony Davis and Zion Williamson have both been recipients of the Wayman Tisdale Award and various National Player of the Year honors.
Duke’s Cooper Flagg will likely become the third member of this exclusive fraternity. Even if Flagg doesn’t win National Player of the Year, he will continue the tradition that held firm every year from 2011 through 2019, save for one (2013), wherein the Wayman Tisdale Award winner was also a consensus 1st Team All-American.
That distinction is particularly noteworthy as it pertains to Tisdale himself, who in 1983 was the first freshman to accomplish the feat. Through 2006, Tisdale’s only company was Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf.
Tisdale averaged 24.5 points, 10.3 rebounds, and 2.4 blocked shots a game as a freshman — all three marks best in the Big 8 Conference. He actually shared Big 8 Player of the Year honors with Missouri center Steve Stipanovich, himself a former standout freshman and the star of a Tigers team that swept the league’s regular-season and tournament championships.
For context as to just how statistically remarkable Tisdale’s debut campaign was compared to Stipanovich’s in 1979-80, when Stipanovich won Big 8 Rookie of the Year, consider that the difference in their output alone would be an impressive line for most freshmen: 10.1 fewer points, 3.9 fewer rebounds, and 1.9 fewer blocks.
Opportunity contributed to Tisdale’s prolific output, it deserves noting. Oklahoma coach Billy Tubbs rivaled UNLV’s Jerry Tarkanian as one of the most successful adopters of high-tempo, fast-break-oriented offense combined with aggressive, full-court defense.
The Sooners’ style reached its zenith in 1987-88 when Oklahoma had both the best point guard in the college game at the time, Mookie Blaylock, and an athletic big man in Stacey King.
But Oklahoma’s brand of basketball only deserves a mention lest it be misconstrued as in any way discrediting how otherworldly Tisdale really was. The 810 points he scored in 1982-83 set a program record that he broke in 1983-84 with 919, and again in 1984-85 with 932. The latter two occupy two of the top three seasons in Sooners history still today, bookending Buddy Hield’s sensational 2015-16.
The 51 points Tisdale scored just weeks into his college career set an OU record — which he surpassed in 1984-85 with 55 points and in 1983-84 with what remains the program mark, 61 points.
Tisdale’s 1982-83 standard for freshman scoring endured for 35 years until Trae Young had one of the greatest first-year campaigns of all time en route to 876 points. And Young scored those 66 additional points with both a 3-point line and attempting nearly two more field goals per game.
Comparing Tisdale’s ‘82-’83 with Young’s ‘17-’18 offers an important contrast underscoring why Tisdale is still arguably the greatest freshman ever in college basketball to this day: Wayman Tisdale debuted in a much different game.
Rules changes on the court, most notably the 3-pointer, changed basketball forever. Changes off the court with underclassmen free to pursue professional careers also led to a shift in the role of freshmen in general — albeit very gradually.
Though the Spencer Haywood-led lawsuit against the NBA alleviated the league’s age restrictions for draft prospects, even the most talented college stars remained in the game until their junior season. Even Isiah Thomas jumping from Indiana after his national championship-winning sophomore campaign was an outlier.
Now, the consensus 1st Team All-American lineup in 1982-83 hinted toward the shift to youthful talent taking over college basketball. Tisdale joined Keith Lee of Memphis, Michael Jordan, and Patrick Ewing; with three sophomores, it was already the youngest All-American 1st Team before Tisdale’s inclusion.
Still, both the rarity of underclassmen earning 1st Team All-America before 1983 and the dearth of freshmen joining Tisdale for decades after spoke to just how much more weight experience and maturity carried in the college game then.
It’s also no coincidence that the overall quality of college basketball then was seen as the sport’s Golden Age, reaching a crossroads at which overall talent increased exponentially; the style of play became more imaginative and less restrictive; and stars who, a generation later, would be around for only a year instead stayed in college and developed their games.
To wit, every freshman to earn consensus 1st Team All-American honors from Durant onward jumped to the NBA the same year. Flagg will almost certainly follow suit in 2025 — though perhaps chasing a national championship while appearing in New Balance ads alongside Cameron Brink is more appealing than toiling for the dreadful Charlotte Hornets?
OK, so the bottom of the NBA in the "Fail For Flagg" anti-competition might be dire, but I still imagine the Duke sensation will enter the NBA draft.
Two decades later — perhaps even earlier — Tisdale would have presumably also gone pro after his stellar 1983 season. Instead, he spent another two seasons at Oklahoma, where he won his second and third Big 8 Player of the Year awards and garnered another couple of unanimous 1st Team All-American selections.
When Tubbs suggested Tisdale still had “a lot to learn” even as an All-American freshman, the forward’s continued growth served as testament.
Three sensational seasons during arguably the greatest era of college basketball as far as star power, collective quality of play, and the game’s peak popularity might seemingly make Wayman Tisdale a more prominent name than he seems to be today.
Perhaps it’s because his NBA career, while spanning 12 years, never reached superstar status; or because Oklahoma never advanced to the Final Four during his career1. Whatever the reason, Tisdale should be mentioned more among the all-time great college players.
He’s certainly still the standard by which all freshmen since should be measured, from Carmelo Anthony to Cooper Flagg.
Tisdale is hardly responsible, however. When Oklahoma reached the Elite Eight in 1985, Tisdale had games of 28 points and 12 rebounds vs. North Carolina A&T; 29 points and eight rebounds vs. Illinois State; 23 points, 11 rebounds and three blocks opposite Karl Malone and Louisiana Tech; and 11 points, 11 rebounds and three assists in the Regional final vs. Memphis.
Tisdale also went for 36 points and 11 rebounds in the Round of 32 loss to Dayton the postseason prior.