Ranking candidates for college basketball’s national player of the year:

Selection Sunday for the 2023 NCAA Tournament is just two months away as college basketball season hits the midway point with the national scene starting to take shape. While the meat of conference play still lies ahead, we’ve seen enough action to learn who the contenders are for some of the sport’s individual awards, including national player of the year.

Much like the Heisman Trophy in college football, national player of the year in college basketball often winds up as something of a team award. It’s uncommon to see a winner come from a program that was not among the nation’s best during the season. While that may be unfair to some of the game’s supreme scorers such as Antoine Davis of Detroit or Jordan “Jelly” Walker of UAB, it’s the reality. 

The realities of the team-oriented nature of the award also has some high-profile candidates from power conference programs floundering in the race. Oscar Tshiebwe of Kentucky, Armando Bacot of North Carolina, Trayce Jackson-Davis of Indiana and Hunter Dickinson of Michigan each ranked among the very best in our preseason ranking of college basketball’s Top 100 And 1 best players. However, each of their teams has been underwhelming, and that may need to change before any of them can sniff the player of the year conversation.

So who are the front-runners for the award? Let’s take a look at the five most obvious candidates.

PPG: 21.9 | RPG: 13.2 | FG PCT: 63.1%

Purdue’s 7-foot-4 center is towering over the competition for Big Ten Player of the Year and has the No. 3 Boilermakers off to a surprising 15-1 start after they were unranked to begin the season. After playing just 19 minutes per game last season while splitting time with Trevion Williams, the junior has seamlessly translated his efficiency to a much greater workload. Now logging 31.3 minutes per game, Edey ranks first in the Big Ten in scoring and rebounding and is second in blocks.

Edey is shooting 63.1% from the field and making a career-best 74.5% of his free throws, which makes defending him a nightmare. He’s also fouling less — despite playing significantly more minutes — than he did during his first two seasons of college basketball. What’s scary for the Big Ten and college basketball is that Edey can play at least one more season of college basketball after this one. Given his lack of an outside shot and defensive limitations on the perimeter, it’s easy to imagine Edey steering clear of the pro game for a return to Purdue. For now, he’s in excellent position to be the sport’s player of the year.

PPG: 20.6 | RPG: 9.1 | FG PCT: 57.4%

Arizona lost three NBA Draft picks from last season’s squad, which earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. But the No. 9 Wildcats have barely missed a beat because of Tubelis’ excellent offensive play. The 6-11 junior leads the Pac-12 in scoring at 20.6 points per game and in rebounding with 9.1 boards…