Latest 2023-24 Men's College Basketball National Player of the Year Rankings
The 2023-24 men's college basketball regular season is roughly 80 percent complete, but the quest to crown the National Player of the Year is around 99.9 percent finished. Barring injury or an unimaginably brutal late-season collapse, Purdue's Zach Edey is going to become the first two-time NPOY since Ralph Sampson in the early 1980s.
If Edey does falter down the stretch, though, who is best positioned to ascend to that throne?
And beyond just the (lack of a) race for the top spot, how does the full top 10 shake out for possible All-American team purposes?
Players are ranked on a combination of overall individual production/efficiency and team success—the latter playing a key role, as the NPOY has almost always come from a team that earns a No. 4 seed or better in the NCAA tournament. Season averages/percentages are the main draw in terms of individual production, but it sure does help if the player also has a Herculean performance or two against a quality foe.
Team success is growing more important with each passing iteration of these rankings, as we get a more realistic feel for what seed line these teams are likely to receive. Every player in our top 10 plays for a team that is all but certain to show up in Saturday's top 16 bracket reveal.
10. Caleb Love, Arizona
1 of 10
Season Stats: 18.9 PPG, 5.1 RPG, 3.3 APG, 1.1 SPG, 34.9% 3PT
Previous Rank: Not Mentioned
Though we're sticking with the original season-long plan of continuing to trim this list and now only doing a top 10 sans honorable mentions, let's just say there were still a bunch of strong candidates for this final spot, most notably Johni Broome, DaRon Holmes II, PJ Hall, Terrence Shannon Jr. and Baylor Scheierman.
But while those guys are playing well for teams in the mix for a No. 4 seed, Arizona's reascension to the projected No. 1 seed line has put Caleb Love back on the radar too brightly to ignore.
Love almost made it back into our rankings two weeks ago after he went for a career-high 36 points in a road win over Oregon. However, Arizona felt so down and out at that point following the bad loss to Oregon State that it just didn't feel right to move a Wildcat up the list.
After Arizona has won five in a row, though?
With Love averaging 20.8 points, 6.2 rebounds and 3.6 assists and shooting 41 percent from distance during that winning streak?
Now it's a lot easier to make the case for him in the top 10.
Love did struggle in the triple-overtime affair at Utah, needing 20 field-goal attempts to get his 19 points. But he made several winning plays in that third overtime, including a pair of rebounds to record the first double-double of his career. And two nights after that 49-minute grind, he led the Wildcats to another key road win (at Colorado) with another 19-point effort.
At this point, though, opportunities for Love to make big statements are pretty much gone in the pathetic Pac-12. The Wildcats don't even have a Quad 1 game left on the docket. But maybe he can go off for 35 points in a road win over UCLA to make one final regular-season splash.
9. Mark Sears, Alabama
2 of 10
Season Stats: 20.5 PPG, 4.3 RPG, 4.0 APG, 1.7 SPG, 44.4% 3PT
Previous Rank: Honorable Mention
Mark Sears has been searing hot as of late, scoring at least 21 points in seven consecutive games, as well as in 10 of his last 11 since the start of SEC play.
Save for the 31-point performance in the blowout win over South Carolina in early January, he has stayed pretty consistently in the 21- to 25-point range, and typically with right around five assists.
In a weird way, that metronome-like consistent excellent play has kept Sears from making any serious strides for NPOY.
It doesn't help matters that Tennessee's Dalton Knecht has pretty well left Sears in the dust as far as SEC POY goes. Nor does it help that the Crimson Tide only have one particularly great looking win this season, when Sears went for 22 points, eight assists, five rebounds and three steals in the home win over Auburn.
But now that Alabama is continuing to trickle its way up the projected seed list, Sears is getting more national attention for his Frank Mason- and Jalen Brunson-like reliably high level of point guard play for a title contender.
The big key will be the remaining games against Kentucky and Tennessee.
Sears played phenomenally in the December loss to Purdue (35 points) and certainly wasn't the reason Alabama suffered its losses away from home against Creighton, Arizona, Tennessee and Auburn. But a big performance in a big win over one of those two SEC schools could go a long, long way toward Sears emerging as a first-team All-American candidate.
8. Hunter Dickinson, Kansas
3 of 10
Season Stats: 18.2 PPG, 10.8 RPG, 2.2 APG, 1.2 BPG, 1.1 SPG, 34% 3PT
Previous Rank: No. 5
We had Jayhawks teammates Hunter Dickinson and Kevin McCullar Jr. tied at No. 5 in the previous NPOY rankings. But with McCullar missing three of the past five games with a knee injury and not playing particularly well over the past month anyway (surely to some degree because of the knee), it's probably about time to solely consider Dickinson here, right?
Unfortunately, Kansas' stretch 5 has had two consecutive disappointing performances.
The Jayhawks did eke out a home win over Baylor last weekend, but Dickinson was clearly outplayed by Baylor's big freshman Yves Missi. Dickinson had 15 points on 19 field-goal attempts and grabbed just seven rebounds as Kansas finished minus-17 in rebound margin.
Then in the blowout loss at Texas Tech, Dickinson was held to five points on 12 shots and again managed just seven rebounds.
At this point, neither Jayhawk is in the top 10 of the KenPom Player of the Year standings, and it's looking increasingly probable that Houston's Jamal Shead will be named Big 12 POY.
Dickinson is still averaging a double-double, though. And Kansas is looking good for a No. 2 seed with plenty of opportunity left to play its way back to the No. 1 line—provided it can actually win a road game for a change. Can't possibly justify dropping him out of the top 10 altogether.
But the dream of two Jayhawks being named first-team All-Americans might be just about kaput.
7. Kyle Filipowski, Duke
4 of 10
Season Stats: 17.4 PPG, 8.3 RPG, 2.8 APG, 1.8 BPG, 1.1 SPG, 34.5% 3PT
Previous Rank: No. 6
The game against North Carolina two weekends ago was a major opportunity for Kyle Filipowski to make a run at NPOY. And though he did go for 22 points in the road loss, he wasn't the most impressive Blue Devil (Jared McCain was), nor was he anything close to the best frontcourt player on the floor, as UNC's Harrison Ingram and Armando Bacot ruled the night with a combined 46 points and 23 rebounds.
It was simply another good-not-elite game from Filipowski, who has now posted an O-rating of 108 or below in eight consecutive games and continues to slip a little further in the rankings.
It's not that he's playing poorly. We wouldn't even be considering him for the top 10 if that were the case. But there's this intangible element in NPOY rankings where you just need to occasionally get the feeling that the player willed him team to victory. And save for going for 30 and 13 in the home game against Georgia Tech a month ago—a bottom-half-of-Quadrant 3 game that really should not have necessitated any individual heroics—does "Flip" have a single one of those games this season?
Even in Monday's win over Wake Forest, Filipowski had a double-double (21 points, 10 rebounds) and played a huge role in getting Demon Deacons big man Efton Reid into immediate foul trouble; however, he wasn't named the KenPom game MVP and had a bone-headed turnover near the end of regulation that could have been catastrophic if Damari Monsanto had been able to hit the wide-open three-point attempt that came from it.
All that said, if Filipowski catches fire down the stretch while Duke surges to a No. 1 seed, he isn't out of the conversation just yet.
6. Jamal Shead, Houston
5 of 10
Season Stats: 12.7 PPG, 5.8 APG, 3.6 RPG, 2.1 SPG, 34.5% 3PT
Previous Rank: No. 8
In eight games played since mid-January, Houston's Jamal Shead has averaged 17.9 points with 43 assists and 15 steals against just 11 turnovers.
Yes, we are occasionally, painfully reminded why he didn't call his own number all that much in the first half of the season. Between the road wins over BYU and Cincinnati, Shead shot a combined 8-of-31 from inside the arc.
But for every one of those shooting duds, there's at least one game where he is efficiently scoring and/or coming through in the clutch.
(And even in those two poor-shooting games, he still had a combined eight assists against one turnover and was good enough to help guide the Cougars to victory.)
LJ Cryer is still Houston's leading scorer for the year, but it has predominantly been the Shead Show for the past month, with Cryer held to single digits in six of his last 10 games and with Shead contributing much more in the assists and steals departments.
It's hard to legitimately make a case for Shead as the "best point guard in the nation" when both Tyler Kolek and Tristen Newton are out there as options. But we can at least declare him a "really good point guard for maybe the best team in the nation." That was enough for former teammate Marcus Sasser to be named a consensus first-team All-American last year.
5. Tristen Newton, Connecticut
6 of 10
Season Stats: 15.2 PPG, 6.6 RPG, 5.8 APG, 1.2 SPG, 30% 3PT
Previous Rank: No. 3
Tristen Newton has struggled to find his shot as of late.
In the four games prior to Wednesday night's matchup with DePaul, Newton shot 11-of-34 (32.4 percent) from the field and 1-of-12 from three-point range. He still did quite a bit of damage from the free-throw line in two of those games, but Cam Spencer is now the leading scorer for the Huskies, shooting better from three-point range (45.2 percent) than Newton does from the field (40.7 percent).
Of course, true shooting percentage was never the allure with Newton.
Rather, it's his ability to run the offense, set up teammates, draw contact, crash the glass and do just about everything other than consistently hit silky smooth jumpers. And he has continued to perform in that regard, falling just a few assists shy of a triple-double in the win at St. John's and averaging 7.8 rebounds and 5.5 assists during this poor-shooting skid.
He absolutely can stroke it from distance, though. Remember when he couldn't miss against Kansas?
They just haven't been falling lately.
Sure would be huge if that changes in his next game. Connecticut hosts Marquette on Saturday in the first of (at least) two head-to-head matchups with Tyler Kolek to help determine who deserves to be Big East Player of the Year and possibly the first runner-up to Zach Edey for NPOY.
Of note: In last year's home game against Marquette, Newton posted the second triple-double of his career (12 points, 12 assists, 10 rebounds) in a convincing UConn victory.
4. Dalton Knecht, Tennessee
7 of 10
Season Stats: 20.3 PPG, 4.8 RPG, 1.9 APG, 40.5% 3PT
Previous Rank: No. 4
Saturday's loss to Texas A&M was a frustrating one for Dalton Knecht. He started out just 1-of-6 from the field as the Aggies stormed out to an early 14-point lead. Knecht later got into foul trouble and spent a big chunk of the second half on the bench.
And yet, he finished with 22 points and seven rebounds and unsuccessfully tried to lead an unlikely comeback in the final few minutes.
Knecht is now averaging 28.4 points, 6.6 rebounds and 2.2 assists (with just 1.0 turnovers) over his last nine games. During that stretch, he has shot 50 percent from the field and 44.6 percent from distance, carrying an offense that occasionally otherwise decides not to show up at all.
What he has done over the past month-plus is the type of thing we're accustomed to seeing from a small-school superstar—a Fletcher Magee from Wofford, a Marcus Keene from Central Michigan or a Max Abmas when he was at Oral Roberts—who simply has a permanent green light against competition that can't do anything to stop him.
So for Knecht to efficiently do this "hero ball" thing in the SEC night in and night out is just about dumbfounding.
Not going to say he could be this year's Kemba Walker, seeing as how he's not the primary ball-handler/distributor for the Volunteers. But Knecht could be the architect of a similar one-man run in the NCAA tournament.
3. RJ Davis, North Carolina
8 of 10
Season Stats: 21.4 PPG, 3.6 RPG, 3.5 APG, 1.3 SPG, 41.1% 3PT
Previous Rank: No. 2
North Carolina has lost three of its last five games to Georgia Tech, Clemson and Syracuse and may be just about irreparably out of the No. 1 seed mix at this point.
To RJ Davis' credit, he has continued to score at a high level while playing darn near every minute on a nightly basis. Heck, he has even been a little better than normal during this five-game team skid, averaging 22.2 points and 4.4 assists and shooting 42.2 percent from three-point range on nine three-point attempts per night.
More than anything, this rough patch for the Tar Heels has been the product of the inevitable regression to the mean on three-point defense. The Yellow Jackets, Tigers and Orange shot a combined 28-for-68 (41.2 percent) from three-point range, which comes in stark contrast to UNC's previous eight ACC opponents shooting 21.7 percent from distance.
Between those losses and Tyler Kolek's continued surge for a Marquette team that is almost certainly now ahead of North Carolina on the seed list, Davis drops slightly to No. 3.
Rest assured, though, we are still tracking Davis' progress as he tries to become the fourth player in Tar Heels program history to score at least 750 points in a single season.
Even assuming an immediate exit from both the ACC and NCAA tournaments, he's on track for roughly 705 points. But make a deep run in both tournaments and even 850 might still be on the table here.
2. Tyler Kolek, Marquette
9 of 10
Season Stats: 16.1 PPG, 7.4 APG, 5.0 RPG, 1.7 SPG, 41.0% 3PT
Previous Rank: No. 7
It could go up in smoke in a hurry this weekend in the colossal showdown with Tristen Newton and Connecticut, but goodness gracious has Tyler Kolek been on some kind of a run lately.
During Marquette's eight-game winning streak, Kolek has averaged 20.6 points, 9.4 assists, 4.6 rebounds and 1.5 steals. And, at least anecdotally, he is averaging around three daggers per game, constantly providing some sort of answer any time the opposition threatens to pull off an upset.
In Saturday's win over St. John's, Kolek brought the Golden Eagles back from a 15-point deficit practically by himself. They were down 45-30 late in the first half, and he racked up 25 points and nine assists from that point forward as Marquette cruised to an 11-point win.
Kolek also had 12 points in the final eight minutes of Tuesday's road win over Butler, grinding out yet another victory that brought his team one step closer to the No. 1 seed conversation.
He finished each of those games with 27 points, accounting for either 21 points or 11 assists (or both) in seven of his last eight games. (Even the lone exception was still a 17-point, eight-assist, 27-minute light day of work in a 34-point rout of Georgetown.)
Marquette was scary good early in the year even when Kolek wasn't fully healthy. The Golden Eagles dropped off the radar for a little while, but they are back and looking ready to go on a deep tournament run.
1. Zach Edey, Purdue
10 of 10
Season Stats: 23.3 PPG, 11.7 RPG, 2.3 BPG, 1.8 APG
Previous Rank: No. 1
Oh look, a few more double-doubles from the reigning NPOY who is running away with this year's title.
Ho hum.
Games played on Jan. 31 didn't factor into our previous rankings, but it's not like Zach Edey needed the help of that 30-point, 15-rebound performance in the overtime win over Northwestern to land at No. 1 two weeks ago.
Edey subsequently went for 18 and 13 in the win at Wisconsin and 26 and 13 in the win over Indiana, with a combined six assists and five blocks between those two games.
He's now up to eight consecutive double-doubles and 17 for the year.
Really, the only newsworthy development was that the 7'4" giant banked in the first three-pointer of his career in that blowout win over the Hoosiers. That lone, ugly shot isn't going to make NBA draft scouts start to view Edey as a possible stretch 5, but it was a fun moment.
If you're looking for any possible scenario in which Edey slips from his perch atop these rankings, keep an eye on Purdue's matchup with Rutgers next week.
He did have 26 points, 12 rebounds and four blocks against the Scarlet Knights last month, and had a double-double in each game against them last season. But Rutgers is an extremely physical team that has had a knack for slowing down the Boilermakers. That showdown in the paint with Clifford Omoruyi could be quite the battle.
Statistics current through the start of play on Wednesday.
.jpg?w=600 "Pickens' Trade Ultimatum")
.png?w=600 "2027 NFL Mock Draft 🔮")
.jpg?w=600 "Mike Vrabel back with Patriots")
.jpg?w=600 "Breaking News")