NCAA Basketball: Obi Toppin leads in national POY power rankings

Stats: 22.0 ppg, 4.9 rpg, 2.4 apg

Myles Powell had been No. 1 on this list for a few weeks in a row now but drops following his worst performance of the season – a nine-point outing in a convincing loss to Xavier in which he shot just 3/14 from the field.

Powell and the Pirates had been riding a 10-game win streak into that game and, while they bounced back with a win over Georgetown thanks to 34 points from Powell, that loss to the Musketeers certainly knocked some of the luster off the senior’s candidacy (it didn’t help that the two candidates now ahead of him had good weeks, too).

He told reporters this week that his recent slump had gotten the better of him in that performance against Xavier.

"“Saturday, Sunday, it was hard for me, going through the little shooting slump I’ve been going through. I had a real bad practice Monday, I mean real bad — kicking the ball around the gym all day. “[Head coach Kevin Willard and I] had a heart-to-heart. My teammates kept picking my head up, ‘Yo, we can’t do this without you.’ Without the support of my teammates and coaches, I wouldn’t be able to turn it around like this.”"

Luckily, Powell has an immediate chance to get his candidacy back on track this weekend against Villanova. The battle between top-12 teams is one of Saturday’s biggest games with first place in the Big East on the line.

Seton Hall will need Powell to come up big if they’re going to knock off Villanova on the road, and it will likely be the kind of performance that would catapult him back up these rankings.