Busting Brackets
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NCAA Basketball: 3 remain in tight 2019-20 National Player of the Year race

By Brian Rauf

EAST LANSING, MI - FEBRUARY 25: Luka Garza #55 of the Iowa Hawkeyes shoots a free throw in the second half of the game against the Michigan State Spartans at the Breslin Center on February 25, 2020 in East Lansing, Michigan. (Photo by Rey Del Rio/Getty Images)
EAST LANSING, MI - FEBRUARY 25: Luka Garza #55 of the Iowa Hawkeyes shoots a free throw in the second half of the game against the Michigan State Spartans at the Breslin Center on February 25, 2020 in East Lansing, Michigan. (Photo by Rey Del Rio/Getty Images) /
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NCAA Basketball
DAYTON, OH – FEBRUARY 28: Obi Toppin #1 of the Dayton Flyers (Photo by Michael Hickey/Getty Images) /

Only three players remain in NCAA Basketball’s National Player of the Year race. Who is the favorite heading into the final week of the season?

With the NCAA Basketball season reaching its final week – there are only conference tournament games remaining after the regular season concludes this weekend – the National Player of the Year race tightens even more.

The Naismith Trophy unveiled their 10 semifinalists earlier this week but, here, we have cut the contenders down to three.

Marquette’s Markus Howard and Seton Hall’s Myles Powell have officially dropped out of our race. Both are obviously still very much in the first-team All-America conversation and it will be interesting to see which of those seniors is named Big East Player of the Year, but their respective performances over the last week put them a clear step (or two) behind the top three contenders on our list.

Powell did score 28 points in a win over Howard’s Golden Eagles last weekend, but following that up with an inefficient 14 points on 5/18 shooting in a home loss to Villanova. A victory there and the Pirates would’ve claimed their first outright Big East regular-season title since 1993.

Howard delivered from a production standpoint, scoring 37 points against Seton Hall and 29 against DePaul, yet Marquette lost both games. They have now lost five of their last six games to drop them below .500 in conference play, and that is enough to take him out of serious consideration.

The only fringe candidate who has seen his case surge in recent weeks is Kansas point guard Devon Dotson, who has been the most reliable presence on the No. 1 team in the country. A definite All-American candidate and frontrunner for Big 12 Player of the Year, this surge hasn’t been enough for Dotson to really get into the forefront of the race as a legitimate threat to win.

So, how do the three players remaining in the race stack up against each other going into the season’s final week? Here we go:

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