March Madness: Top 10 frontcourt players in 2019 NCAA Tournament

2. Rui Hachimura – Gonzaga

Rui is one of the great gems of college basketball. As one of the very, very few Japanese players in the country, and with broken English, Hachimura is easy to fall in love with, especially if you watch even five minutes of him on the court. He’s an elegant yet aggressive scorer who plays his ass off. Seriously, there is no one more out of breath than Rui Hachimura. Every single game, whether against Duke or Loyola Marymount, Rui is fully engaged.

It’s become a common college basketball media “hot take” to say “well, actually, if you watch Gonzaga, Brandon Clarke is better than Hachimura.” No, stop it. Rui is absolutely the best player on this team. He is the center of the offense, a well-above-average defender still, and the only player I’d trust with the ball in his hands on the final possession of a championship game. In this tournament, I’ll have Rui on my team over Clarke, ten times out of ten.

1. Zion

I don’t even need to write down his last name or the team he plays for at this point. You know him, I know him, your 62-year-old crazy uncle who lives in his apocalypse hut in Nebraska even knows him. And he’s the best forward in college basketball. When I say that, I might just be talking about EVER. Zion‘s single season at Duke is in the top echelon of single-seasons in the history of the sport.

As an athlete, he’s the new benchmark. We are all witnesses to the greatest story in the last decade in college basketball, and I can’t wait to see the ending.