The calendar says 2023 which means that in about nine short weeks we will have Championship Week followed by Selection Sunday. There is something about conference play that gets everyone hyped. It is a new season for most schools as now every team has a chance to play in the NCAA Tournament. Obviously, most of those teams won’t win their conference tournament and will be eliminated but it is the second season of NCAA basketball.
While the games get more intense and mean more, that means that some of the best players in the country are going to be taking their games to the next level over the next two months. That means that there are going to be intense battles for the Busting Brackets Player of the Week each week. There has yet to be a repeat winner for the award but that is likely going to change. There is no doubt that there will be a repeat winner for the award at some point before the end of the season, that may even happen this week.
This week there were a ton of unbelievable performances and the nomination list is full of guys who scored 30 in a game this week. The mid-major nominations list is 26 players long and there are 12 players from the power five ranks. Nearly every player had a 30-point game this week and every one of them is worthy of winning the award. The nominations for the first week of 2023 are below.