NCAA Basketball: Top 10 players to wear jersey No. 0 in 2023-24 season

9. Tommy Bruner (Denver)

You can look at the deep metrics and roll your eyes at ranking a Summit League player this high, but Bruner is no ordinary Summit League player after all. He cut his teeth earlier in his career with stops at USC Upstate and Jacksonville before finding a home at Denver. These last two seasons saw Bruner establish himself as a dynamic guard for the Pioneers, though he really exceeding himself as a senior this year.

In averaging 24.0 points per game, Bruner would finished as the second-leading scorer in the nation, sitting only behind Zach Edey. He continued a career of solid shooting, becoming the most explosive offensive weapon in the Summit League. It was just a .500 season for Denver, who finished near the bottom of the conference standings, but any night was a potential breakout performance for Bruner, who also lead the league in assists with 4.2 a game.

The most incredible performance on the year was his 49-point effort in a double overtime win against South Dakota, though he also scored 41 points against North Dakota State a few weeks later. The Pioneers weren’t winning as many games as he’d like, but Bruner still had ten 30-point efforts and led the Pioneers to the title game of the Summit League Tournament. He wasn’t doing this against elite defenses and Denver didn’t shock anyone, but Bruner spent a portion of the year as the nation’s leading scorer and certainly found his place in this season’s story.