Busting Brackets
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NCAA Basketball: Ethan Happ, Duke freshmen lead Kenpom’s current POY candidates

By Zach De Jong

DURHAM, NC - NOVEMBER 27: Teammates RJ Barrett #5 and Zion Williamson #1 of the Duke Blue Devils talk during their game against the Indiana Hoosiers at Cameron Indoor Stadium on November 27, 2018 in Durham, North Carolina. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)
DURHAM, NC - NOVEMBER 27: Teammates RJ Barrett #5 and Zion Williamson #1 of the Duke Blue Devils talk during their game against the Indiana Hoosiers at Cameron Indoor Stadium on November 27, 2018 in Durham, North Carolina. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images) /
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SAN ANTONIO, TX – APRIL 01: 2018 Citizen Naismith Men’s College Player of the Year Jalen Brunson of the Villanova Wildcats poses with the 2018 Citizen Naismith Men’s College Player of the Year trophy during the 2018 Naismith Awards Brunch at the Pearl Stable on April 1, 2018 in San Antonio, Texas. (Photo by Tim Bradbury/Getty Images)
SAN ANTONIO, TX – APRIL 01: 2018 Citizen Naismith Men’s College Player of the Year Jalen Brunson of the Villanova Wildcats poses with the 2018 Citizen Naismith Men’s College Player of the Year trophy during the 2018 Naismith Awards Brunch at the Pearl Stable on April 1, 2018 in San Antonio, Texas. (Photo by Tim Bradbury/Getty Images) /

For NCAA Basketball it always came down to opinion when discussing the top players, but Kenpom put together an unbiased method to show the nation’s best players.

Kenpom is an advanced metric site for college basketball made by Ken Pomeroy. There is a free version to the site or a yearly fee of twenty-dollars for extra content.

The site is mainly known for ranking teams through AdjEM (adjusted efficiency margin). The AdjEM is figured out by taking a team’s AdjO (adjusted offensive efficiency) minus its AdjD (adjusted defensive efficiency). AdjO and AdjD are based on how many points a team scores or gives up per 100 possessions. This helps take into consideration tempo and other variables in a team’s play.

In 2010, Pomeroy added Kenpom’s player of the year (kPOY) award. This award was adjusted after every day’s games, including the NCAA tournament. kPOY weights offense slightly more than defense because of the difficulty of analyzing defense. The award also takes into account the success the team is having because of this player. Therefore, it is hard for a player who doesn’t have a top twenty Kenpom team to win this award.

Players in the past like Trae Young, Josh Hart, Brice Johnson, and Frank Kaminsky have all won this award. This year is no different with so many great college basketball players. Here is a deeper look into kPOY after six weeks of the 2018-19 College Basketball season.

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