Miami’s Henderson earns Freshman of the Week honors

Miami’s Henderson earns Freshman of the Week honors

Cameron Salerno / CBSSports.com

Welcome back to the Frosh Watch, our weekly ranking of the ten most impressive freshmen in college basketball. For the 11th season in a row, CBS Sports has once again teamed up with the United States Basketball Writers Association and its Wayman Tisdale Freshman of the Year Award to present this every-Tuesday feature. Each week, we’ll start by announcing the national Freshman of the Week honoree. The cycle for FOTW runs Tuesday-Monday.

One of the ripple effects of former Duke assistant coach Jai Lucas taking the job at Miami earlier this offseason is that blue-chip recruit Shelton Henderson backed off his pledge to the Blue Devils. Shortly after doing so, Henderson committed to Miami and followed Lucas, one of the coaches who played a key part in his recruitment.

That investment is paying off. Last week, Henderson had his best game in a Miami uniform and scored 30 points during a 98-81 win over Florida International. It marked the first time Henderson scored at least 20 points in a game this season.

“He is one of the best freshmen I’ve coached,” Miami coach Jai Lucas said last week. “In the sense of his physicality and his ability to play through contact. … he did a good job carrying the scoring load.”

Henderson is averaging 13.7 points, 4.1 rebounds and 2.4 assists while shooting 61.5% from the floor. He has started all 13 games for the Hurricanes thus far.

The former No. 25 overall recruit in the 2025 recruiting cycle by 247Sports originally committed to Duke before backing off that pledge and signing with Miami this past April. Henderson became fourth-highest-ranked recruit in Miami program history.

Henderson is coming off his best stretch as a college player. After dropping 30 points against FIU, Henderson followed it up with a 20-point outing against North Florida. After not scoring more than 18 points in a single game during the first month of the season, Henderson delivered two standout performances.

2025-26 National Freshmen of the Week
Nov. 11: Koa Peat, Arizona
Nov. 18: Mikel Brown Jr., Louisville
Nov. 25: Cameron Boozer, Duke
Dec. 2: Cameron Boozer, Duke
Dec. 9: Hannes Steinbach, Washington

Dec. 16: AJ Dybantsa, BYU
Dec. 23: Shelton Henderson, Miami