NCAA Basketball: Akron and Purdue with 2023 Players of the Week

It is Monday morning which means it is time for another Busting Brackets Player of the Week to be handed out. Last week the winners were Vonterious Woolbright from Western Carolina and Boo Buie from the Northwestern Wildcats. It was the first time either of those players have ever won the award. This week a new set of players emerged as potential winners of the award but the two players who won were two of the best players in the country at their positions and have won the award before over the last two seasons.

Any of you who are not familiar with this award let me fill you in. Each week I go and look for the best performances from every game against two division 1 opponents and find the players who stood out above their peers. I find one player from the mid major ranks and one player from the Power five ranks. The winners are two players who had the best week but usually are guys who had a huge game and then remained consistent over the week to prove the huge game was not just a fluky night.

There is always going to be a larger pool of Mid Major players to choose from because there is a larger number of mid major teams within the 362 teams who play college basketball. There are a set of usual players who almost always appear on the Power 5 list because they are the cream of the crop. This week the winners are household names and are not only going to win weekly awards but are going to be in the mix for many national awards as well. The Mid Major Player of the Week is below.