NCAA Basketball: Ranking the last 25 AP Player of the Year award winners

Elton Brand is another player that is difficult to rank, considering his raw stats are not quite as high as some of the others. Part of this, however, is because he is one of the few players to play fewer than 30 minutes per game.

He may have played fewer minutes, but those minutes he did play were some of the most productive among the former AP Player of the Year winners. During his sophomore season, Brand led the Duke Blue Devils to the national championship game behind almost equal offensive and defensive prowess.

Although he came to Duke at the same time as highly recruited forward Shane Battier, Brand was more effective from the start, becoming Duke’s go-to big man. At 6-foot-8, 275 pounds, Brand was essentially an immovable object, who used his size to establish himself as one of the best pure post players in college basketball.

Brand was an excellent defender controlling the paint with his big body, elite shot-blocking and high-level rebounding. In addition to this, he created more turnovers than the average big man. He was undersized for a true big, but he made up for it with his strength.

On the offensive end, Brand was no slouch either. He finished the season shooting over 60 percent from the floor, finishing top 10 in the country in pounds scored, field goal percentage and offensive win shares.

This combination of offense and defense gave no doubt to Brand’s Player of the Year honors and earns him a top-15 spot on this list.