In the span of the last week, the race for National Player of the Year in college hoops has ratcheted up to another level.
It started with Denzel Valentine, whose early season performances made him the front runner for the award before he was forced to take some time off due to a arthroscopic procedure he had to get done on his knee.
That opened the door for Kris Dunn, who had the defining game of his season to date, totally taking over in Hinkle Fieldhouse as Providence erased a 13 point Butler lead in the second half. But that was before Buddy Hield’s monster Monday night made him the most popular pick of everyone that can’t remember more than the previous 24 hours.
And lest we forget Ben Simmons, who is in the process of putting up Durant-ian numbers on a team that suddenly looks like they have some life.
In other words, at this point, there is a clear-cut top four in this race. How do we rank their Player of the Year candidacy as of today? Go follow the NBC Sports College Basketball Talk FaceBook page to follow along with the countdown.