NCAA Basketball: Pritchard surges in National Player of the Year rankings

Stats: 19.8 ppg, 7.8 rpg, 2.1 apg, 1.3 bpg

Obi Toppin continues to dominate as does Dayton, who hasn’t lost since Christmas. The Flyers rose to No. 4 in the country this week and will hold onto that ranking after handily beating Duquesne, George Mason, and Davidson.

In the latter against the Wildcats on Friday night, Toppin recorded a monster double-double with 23 points and 11 rebounds, including several highlight-reel dunks.

That’s the core of Toppin’s case right now, and it is a good one. He’s as dominant as you’d expect someone of his ability to be against mid-major competition, has his school reaching unprecedented heights and is doing so with plenty of flash.

At the same time, he’s only in the No. 3 spot because he hasn’t had any real “Heisman moment,” so to speak. Toppin simply doesn’t have many large stages to perform on because of where he plays so, for as dominant as he has been, he needs one of the guys ahead of him to fall.

With all that being said, the margin between the top three players on the list is very thin.