Luka Garza Still Heavy Favorite, but Who Else Could Win College Basketball NPOY?

Luka Garza has been the clear favorite to be named college basketball's 2020-21 National Player of the Year since he announced Aug. 2 that he would return for his senior season.

According to DraftKings, Garza's current odds to win the Wooden Award are -2000 (bet $100 to win $5). The implied probability with that line is a 95.2 percent chance he wins.

Here's the thing, though...

Team success is kind of a huge deal with the Wooden Award voters. Twenty* of the last 30 Wooden Award winners played for teams who received No. 1 seeds in the NCAA tournament, and only one of the 30 played for a team that received worse than a No. 4 seed—Utah earned a No. 6 seed in 2005 when Andrew Bogut won it.

*Assuming Dayton would have been a No. 1 seed this past season had there been a tournament.

Despite getting at least 16 points out of Garza in every game thus far this season—he's averaging a nation-best 25.5 points to go along with 8.4 rebounds—Iowa's projected tournament seed is starting to slip. The Hawkeyes have lost four of their last five games, including getting swept by a barely-.500 Indiana team.

Thanks mostly to impressive rankings in the various predictive analytics (KenPom, NCAA Evaluation Tool, etc.), the Bracket Matrix still has Iowa projected for a No. 3 seed. If the Hawkeyes continue to hover in that range, Garza should remain in fantastic shape for this prestigious honor.

However, with nary an easy win left on the schedule, Iowa and Garza could be headed for a 2017-18 Oklahoma and Trae Young situation here.

That Oklahoma team started out 14-2 and Young was the runaway favorite for every National Player of the Year award in existence. But as the Sooners imploded over the final two months and ended up with a No. 10 seed, Young dropped back to the pack and eventually lost the Wooden Award to the MVP of a No. 1 seed Villanova squad (Jalen Brunson).

Iowa isn't necessarily destined for a spot on the NCAA Tournament bubble. Given the difficulty of the remaining schedule and the lack of defense that the Hawkeyes play, though, stranger things have happened. And if you're going to bet on someone other than Garza to win this thing, there's no time like the present to do it.

If Garza doesn't win, who will? The most obvious choice is Baylor's Jared Butler.

Richard W. Rodriguez/Associated Press

The leader of the still-undefeated Bears is averaging 17.0 points, 5.2 assists, 3.3 rebounds and 2.4 steals while shooting 44.6 percent from three-point range.

Butler drained seven three-pointers in the marquee win over Kansas and always seemed to be the man with an answer when the Jayhawks tried to put together a run. Playing like that in a Monday night showcase against a then-Top 10 opponent is the type of thing that can cause a player's NPOY stock to skyrocket.

In the subsequent game against Oklahoma State, Butler shot 6-of-7 from deep. Three of them came on consecutive possessions midway through the second half when Baylor turned a two-point deficit into a 16-point lead in a flash.

Even when he isn't scorching hot from deep, Butler's fingerprints are all over every box score, tallying at least three assists and one steal in each game. As the do-it-all star of a team that is basically a lock for a No. 1 seed at this point, he's at least a shoo-in for a first-team All-American nod.

From the other undefeated, sure-to-be-a-No. 1 seed team, it's just a question of which Gonzaga star shines the brightest.

Corey Kispert is the senior leader averaging 19.5 points per game while shooting nearly 50 percent from three-point range. His limitless range has been indispensable to a team that otherwise doesn't have much of a perimeter game. Kispert almost single-handedly spaces the floor for this offense, and he isn't afraid of the spotlight. He had 23 in the season opener against Kansas, 25 against Auburn the following night and 32 (with nine made threes) in the stunning blowout of Virginia.

He's only one piece of the puzzle, though.

There's also standout freshman Jalen Suggs, who is averaging 14.4 points, 5.5 rebounds, 4.4 assists and 2.2 steals per game. In a season where the blue bloods are struggling because of mediocre play from their first-year (supposed-to-be) stars, Suggs is making a legitimate case to be taken No. 1 overall in the 2021 NBA draft. His vision is ridiculous, and he certainly makes the most highlight-reel plays from this team.

Joel Ayayi has also been a stat-sheet stuffer to the tune of 11.3 points, 7.3 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 1.4 steals per game. The 6'5" guard is leading the team in rebounds and would be a much stronger candidate for NPOY if he sought his own shot more often. Kispert, Suggs and Drew Timme are all averaging more than 15 field-goal attempts per 40 minutes, but Ayayi—who's shooting 70.5 percent inside the arc and 33.3 percent beyond it—is only at 9.8.

But the best bet from the Zags is probably Timme, if only because he's most different from the other three.

Those guards/wings are spectacular, but Gonzaga would still be a threat to win it all even if you removed one of them from the roster. Timme, on the other hand, is the heart and soul of Gonzaga's interior game. He's averaging 18.9 points, 7.1 rebounds and even 2.1 assists per game. He also has a combined total of 1.6 blocks and steals per game, contributing nicely to a defense that ranks sixth in the nation in adjusted efficiency.

Among the teams that have actually lost this year, Illinois' Ayo Dosunmu could be National Player of the Year.

He had a triple-double (21 points, 12 assists, 12 rebounds) in a statement win over Wisconsin this past Saturday, and he had 25 points in a big win over Iowa less than two weeks ago in what was one of the most entertaining games of the entire season. The Illini have surged into the No. 1 seed conversation, and Dosunmu is the biggest reason why. (Kofi Cockburn's 13 double-doubles certainly haven't hurt, either.)

If you're really looking to have some fun with a non-Garza pick, though, do yourself a favor and ask what odds you can get on USC's Evan Mobley.

Jeff Chiu/Associated Press

DraftKings has listed odds for 102 players, including Ohio State's Seth Towns (averaging 4.8 points per game), Michigan State's Mady Sissoko (has scored a total of 13 points across 14 games), Miami's Chris Lykes (has played in only two games) and a few others that make no sense whatsoever.

But the Trojans freshman who might be the No. 1 overall draft pick in a few months? The guy averaging 16.3 points, 9.0 rebounds, 2.9 blocks and 2.0 assists per game for the projected Pac-12 champon?

Inexplicably, he isn't listed at all.

Mobley and Garza are the only players who have been named KenPom game MVP more than 10 times.  Each entered play Wednesday with 12 such performances. And while Iowa's projected tournament seed has been trending in the wrong direction, USC is on the rise with wins in 10 of its last 11 games. In my bracket projection this week, I have Iowa and USC both on the No. 5 seed line at Nos. 17 and 18, respectively, on the overall seed list.

It's still a bit of a long shot for Mobley, but the mock draft community will ensure he gets a lot of national attention the rest of the way. And if USC wins out, which is feasible, it should end up with no worse than a No. 2 seed.

If Sharife Cooper—who has played in only nine games for a .500 Auburn team that isn't even eligible for the NCAA tournament—can have the sixth-best odds for National Player of the Year, it's messed up that Mobley isn't considered even a top-100 candidate. Especially considering Mobley was listed on the Wooden Watch's Late Season Top 20 and Cooper was not.

Garza is most likely going to win. But if you can get Mobley at 50-1 or longer odds, that seems like a solid investment.

Statistics courtesy of Sports Reference and KenPom.com.

Kerry Miller covers college football and men's college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter, @kerrancejames.

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