NORMAN, Okla. -- Joe Mixon might be Oklahomas best player.Hes undoubtedly the most controversial Sooner.Mixon landed in Norman back in 2014 as one of the nations top running back recruits. Before he even participated in a fall practice, he got into an altercation and punched a woman in the face at a restaurant, resulting in a one-year suspension. Many fans were outraged, and some wanted him kicked off the team.Two years later, hes a bona fide star and crowd favorite who is beloved by his teammates. He ranks seventh nationally in all-purpose yards per game (181.7) and sixth in kickoff return average (32.7) for the 25th-ranked Sooners .Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops said Mixons most significant growth has been off the field.Hes really matured well, Stoops said. Hes been an excellent student. Hes never on the list for anything. He does everything you want him to do and been a great teammate. All of it. In the locker room, hes one of the more popular guys because hes a friend to everybody.Mixons growth has a player has been notable, too. He returned last year and was one of the Big 12s best all-around players. This season, hes been even better. Hes the conference leader in all-purpose yards and ranks fourth in rushing. He combines breakaway speed with shiftiness, the hands of a wide receiver and a powerful 6-foot-1, 226-pound frame.While his teammates have struggled at times during a 1-2 start, Mixon has stood out. He scored Oklahomas first touchdown of the season on a 32-yard run. He ran for 117 yards the next game against Louisiana-Monroe. Against Ohio State, he provided one of the few bright spots when he returned a kickoff 97 yards for a touchdown. He also ran for 78 yards on just nine carries.Mixon shares carries with Samaje Perine, an established star who is climbing the schools career record books. Still, the Sooners want to get the ball to Mixon as often as possible. This season, Mixon is averaging 8.1 yards per carry and 13.1 yards per catch. He has 998 career yards rushing on just 142 attempts.I think we have to be cognizant and keep track of the number of opportunities he gets, for sure, Stoops said. Hes exceptional when you do target him and give him the opportunity.The elephant in the room remains, in part, because Mixon has been sheltered. He has only spoken with the media once since the incident, when he answered football questions only in a session before the Orange Bowl at the end of last season.He hasnt been interviewed this year, though Stoops said he would consider making him available later in the season.Its something weve talked about and Ive talked about it with the administration, and were working on that, Stoops said. Theres a possibility.Mixon still has his immature moments -- at least, on the field. On his kickoff return touchdown against Ohio State, he dropped the ball at the 1-yard line as he headed into the end zone . The officials didnt catch it, but Stoops did. Stoops said he plans to discuss the incident with Mixon.Itll be positive, Stoops said. Weve got the clips of the other guys that have done it as well. Thats something that will be watched and talked through.---Follow Cliff Brunt on Twitter (at)CliffBruntAP . Justin Upton Jersey . I cant pinpoint a date, but I do remember a player from my youth. Brian Downing was with the Chicago White Sox at a time when I listened to every game I possibly could on the radio. That particular season the late great Harry Caray was calling the White Sox games. 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Editors note: The 2016-17 college basketball season will be the Year of the Freshmen,?featuring what could be the best class weve ever seen. Over the next two weeks, we will get familiar with the best of the best, examining who they are and where each of the top 10 prospects in the 2016 ESPN 100 came from.Read more: No. 10 Dukes Frank Jackson | No. 9 Kentuckys Malik Monk No. 8 Michigan States Miles Bridges | No. 7 Washingtons Markelle Fultz No. 6 Kentuckys DeAaron Fox | No. 5 Kentuckys Bam Adebayo No. 4 UCLAs Lonzo Ball | No. 3 Dukes Jayson Tatum No. 2 Kansas Josh Jackson | No. 1 Dukes Harry GilesLAWRENCE, Kan. -- A hard foul, the kind that sends previously functional pickup runs into a shouty standoff death spiral. A 5-foot cushion on the perimeter, with overt disrespect masked as pity. Taunts of the printable -- Hes soft, let him shoot?-- and unprintable variety. An edict delivered as a matter of fact: Freshmen --?all freshman -- are required to carry the upperclassmens bags.This is The Test. Or parts of it, anyway. Probably.Its a tricky, shifty thing, this test -- tough to define in concrete terms. Its not, technically speaking, an exam -- though it also kind of is. There are no guaranteed questions and no sure answers. Even the name is informal. You can be tested, but you can also be challenged. You dont necessarily pass the test so much as react correctly, as Kansas senior?Landen Lucas?said, with some care. Correct reaction requires fluency in a social language only elite athletes speak.All?Josh Jackson?could be sure of when he arrived at the Kansas campus in June was that a test of some kind -- administered by veterans of a top-five team with deadly serious national title ambitions and taken by a hyper-talented freshman with a potential No. 1 NBA draft pick awaiting him 12 months later -- was going to happen.I knew it was coming, Jackson said. Immediately.Fight back. Dont waver. Dont complain. Get angry but not too angry. Hide weakness at all cost. Forget your recruiting ranking; no one cares. Expect equal treatment. Take everything in stride. Absorb the larger stakes. Buy in.Above all, understand that the whole point of all of this, at the end of the day, is to see if you can stand out and?fit in -- at the same time.And?I think I passed, Jackson said.IT IS THERE, in that seemingly contradictory dichotomy between blending in and showing out, that the central promise of Jacksons sure-to-be-short tenure at Kansas lies.In the 13-year Bill Self era -- the past 12 years of which have ended with a regular-season conference title, a rare statistic that cant possibly be over-repeated -- no player this talented has ever joined a team this experienced. Self has had his fair share of elite freshmen, of course; one doesnt win 12 straight Big 12 titles in the one-and-done era without them. Still, the only player with as much or more hype than Jackson upon his arrival at KU was Andrew Wiggins on the 2013-14 team, which started three freshmen (Wiggins, Joel The Process Embiid?and Wayne Selden) and one sophomore (Perry Ellis), with just two seniors (graduate transfer Tarik Black and reserve Justin Wesley) in the rotation.This team is different. Or rather, that team was different -- the youthful outlier in Selfs otherwise balanced personnel portfolio. For most of Selfs tenure, KUs success has been built not merely on talent acquisition but on player development, that gradual, old-fashioned process of incremental, collective improvement. Despite significant year-over-year personnel losses -- Ellis graduated after a sterling, four-year career, and a host of others, including Selden, Cheick Diallo, Jamari Traylor, Brannen Greene and Hunter Mickelson, are gone too -- the 2016-17 edition is still very much that kind of team, led by seniors (Frank Mason III, Lucas) and juniors (Devonte Graham) at its core.Where the massively hyped Wiggins (and Embiid) needed to dominate from the outset, Jackson has the luxury of integrating with a group of players who have already pretty much seen it all. That is, fittingly enough, a perfect forum for his game -- itself a combination of star-level athletic prowess and the kinds of contributions that dont make YouTube mixtapes.The thing about him is -- and I think this is a good thing -- sometimes you go watch somebody play, and right away after 10 minutes, theyre making every shot, and you just go, Wow, Self said of Jackson. Josh is a guy that the more you watch him, you go, Wow.Its not like it just jumps off the page to me when I watch him. Because he can go through phases of time when he blends in. But then you look at it and say, wait, he just blocked three shots, he just got two offensive rebounds, he just led the break, got us a layup -- he can do a lot, this guy. He can do a little bit of everything.Save for a minor hitch in his shooting mechanic, per Self, Jacksons game has no glaring holes. He can do all the mixtape things: He is 6-foot-7 and superathletic, he has a ball handlers touch, he is an excellent passer, and he has an innate ability to create angles and make tough shots in traffic. But he might be even better at cutting off the ball and better still as a defender, particularly on the perimeter. Jackson could end up being KUs best perimeter defender, which is no small feat for a guy playing next to Mason and Graham, two of the nations best.That is why Self, whose teams have typically featured two traditionally big forwards, iis figuring out how to play four guards at any given time.dddddddddddd Its a stylistically on-trend move, as the game gets smaller and smaller from the NBA on down, and its one Jackson -- the tallest guard in that four-guard lineup -- seems entirely capable of taking on. If he scores 30, great. But he might score 12 and be every bit as crucial.You cant label him as any one thing, Self said. Hes just a basketball player.HE IS ALSO, it turns out, a totally nice, seemingly normal dude.Jackson can play the saxophone -- well enough that if he had practiced and hadnt been so nervous, he could have gotten through the solo performance his teammates wanted him to put on at Kansas Late Night in the Phog event in October. (I was not comfortable playing in front of 16,000 people, he said.) Hes into chess, and he started a chess club at Prolific Prep in Napa, California, where he spent his senior year of high school and was a member of the National Honor Society. Ask him to describe himself, and the first thing he will say is that hes kind of an introvert.He is also, it turns out, a next-level competitive freak.This is the second bit of that self-description: a competitor at everything. Chess gets heated. Checkers gets heated. Connect Four -- Connect Four! -- gets heated. Video games arent merely a relaxing diversion; theyre another avenue in which to compete. (His top choice is Mortal Kombat XL. His main character? Raiden. I dont think anyone can beat me, he said.)Indeed, these are the two things other people say about Jackson: that he is a really nice guy and crazy competitive, and that the difference is never more noticeable than when he steps on and off the court.Hes very easy to get along with, Lucas said. I dont think Ive ever seen a person, or a personality type, not fit with him.This is the same person who, earlier this year, blocked a shot from NBA legend Gary Paytons son in a high school game -- and then started talking trash to Gary Payton.Self picked up on all of this quickly enough. Sometimes, all he has to do is praise a teammate for playing hard and intentionally omit Jackson, and then watch as Jackson mutters at himself under his breath.As far as Jackson can tell, that innate drive was honed early in childhood, when his mother, Apples Jones, a former player at UTEP, took her son out back for games of one-on-one -- and never, ever let him win.(Ahem: The similarities to Duke guard Frank Jacksons one-on-one matches against his father are uncanny, and the only conclusion worth drawing is that parents of prodigal hoopsters should start ruthlessly dominating their children at a tender age. It seems to work.)The mental image of a little kid crying and storming off because his mom beat him at basketball -- again -- is a vivid one, but that cant be how it went down.Thats pretty much exactly how it went down, Jackson said with a laugh.Starting at 8 years old, Jackson played his mom, and she wouldnt give an inch, would not take it easy on me at all. It took all of five years, until Jackson was 13 and had grown a few inches and gotten a bit stronger, for him to get his first win.Of course, I started prancing around and dancing and all of that stuff, he said. She didnt seem mad, though. She had a smile on her face. She was happy.Lesson learned: Basketball is more fun when its competitive, when both people know they are getting the others best.And we, after that, we never played again, Jackson said.NO WONDER JACKSON WAS READY for his test. For some players, even great ones, threading the needle between uber-competitive jerk and over-passive nice guy is a career-long struggle. For KUs freshman star, it is the baseline sum of his personality.Josh is great at it, Lucas said. Because of the demeanor he brings with him. Speaking for me, personally, I love it when guys, young guys, come back at it. Because Im competitive too.I will tell you this: If anybody in his camp, primarily his mom, thought he would back down because somebody came at him, I mean, Self said before pausing, that would ... be something that was discussed for a long time. Thats not in their DNA.That doesnt mean there wont be more tests. As comfortable as Jackson is with the attention he is receiving -- and as much as he was introduced to it as early as eighth grade, when the recruiting rankings started rolling in -- theres something different about feeling it on a nightly basis or after a tough loss or when the shots dont fall for a week or a month or all season. The lights can get bright.Those summer tests, preemptively designed to ward off trouble later in the season, cant always account for the frustrations that can accrue in the cold winter Big 12 play -- or the pressures associated with KUs attempt to tie the longest conference-title streak of all time, currently held by UCLA.In the meantime, though, Jackson has, to use Selfs phrase, unpacked his bags. He has integrated himself fully in the team, on the court and off. He has done everything he can to earn the respect of the veteran teammates whose goals he will play such a large role in achieving and who hate to lose every bit as much as he does. The goal: Fit in and stand out.Rest assured of one thing: Even if you dont see Jackson, youll hear him.Oh, definitely, [I talk back], Jackson said. Thats part of passing the test. ' ' '