Our Player of the Year predictions for the 10 best mens’ college basketball conferences

Mid-January means the thick of conference play is upon us, so what better time to take an updated look at the conference Player of the Year races in the sport’s 10 best leagues?

ACC

The Front-Runner:

Cameron Boozer, Duke

The Contenders:

Caleb Wilson, North Carolina
Ebuka Okorie, Stanford
Boopie Miller, SMU

The Skinny:

The national Player of the Year front-runner is also very clearly the ACC Player of the Year front-runner. I suppose there’s a world where Boozer’s production slips dramatically (or worse, he gets hurt) and Wilson, Miller or Okorie take their game to a level even higher than it’s already been, but it’s hard to envision that at the moment.

Assuming Boozer does bring home the league’s top individual honor, he’ll be the fifth Blue Devil in the last nine years to do so.

Atlantic 10

The Front-Runner:

Kory Mincy, George Mason

The Contenders:

Robby Avila, Saint Louis
Rafael Castro, George Washington
Javon Bennett, Dayton

The Skinny:

George Washington fans are all-in on Castro’s campaign. While he certainly has more than just a puncher’s chance here, I’ll go with the guy who’s been the best player for one of college basketball’s most pleasantly surprising teams.

George Mason was picked to finish sixth in the Atlantic 10 going into the season. Heading into Monday evening’s showdown with GW, the Patriots are 17-1 overall with an unblemished 5-0 mark in league play. Mincy, a transfer from Presbyterian, is the biggest reason why. The remarkably consistent guard is averaging 16.6 ppg and shooting a career-best 42.6 percent from three.

American

The Front-Runner:

Rowan Brumbaugh, Tulane

The Contenders:

Kanaan Carlyle, Florida Atlantic
Tylen Riley, Tulsa
Devin Vanterpool, Florida Atlantic

The Skinny:

If you haven’t seen Rowan Brumbaugh hoop yet, you’ve got about two months left to fix that. The 6’4” junior, who played his freshman season at Georgetown, has scored in double figures in all 22 American Conference games he’s played in. He’s currently averaging 18.8 ppg for a Green Wave team that figures to be near the top of the American standings for the duration of the winter.

FAU might look like the strongest team in the conference, but Carlyle and Vanterpool — who are both terrific — splitting the vote should bode well for Brumbaugh’s (or someone else’s) chances.

Big 12

The Front-Runner:

A.J. Dybantsa, BYU

The Contenders:

J.T. Toppin, Texas Tech
Christian Anderson, Texas Tech
Joshua Jefferson, Iowa State
Kingston Flemings, Houston
Jaden Bradley, Arizona

The Skinny:

That’s an outrageous list right there. Every one of those guys (and maybe even a couple others) not only has a chance to bring home this award, but they have a chance to be a First Team All-American when the season wraps up.

Big East

The Front-Runner:

Alex Karaban, UConn

The Contenders:

Zuby Ejiofor, St. John’s
Solo Ball, UConn
Michael Ajayi, Butler

The Skinny:

This is still a pretty wide open race in a conference that doesn’t feature a ton of dynamic scorers. The Karaban pick is based largely on my belief that UConn is going to run through league play and demand that someone from their squad brings home this award. If that doesn’t happen then Ejiofor is the safe bet, but Ajayi — an absolute double-double machine — should get at least a little bit of love as well.

Big Ten

The Front-Runner:

Yaxel Lendeborg, Michigan

The Contenders:

Braden Smith, Purdue
Bennett Stirtz, Iowa
Trey Kaufman-Renn, Purdue
Keaton Wagler, Illinois

The Skinny:

Braden Smith was everybody’s preseason National Player of the Year, but he finds himself in a dogfight for the top honor in his own conference.

Michigan has been the league’s best team, and Lendeborg has clearly been there best player, so there’s that. There’s also a growing contingent of folks (though still not a majority) arguing that it’s Bennett Stirtz, and not Smith, who is actually the best floor general in the Big Ten. We’ll see how that debate plays out over the weeks ahead.

Don’t sleep on Wagler here. In a year where freshmen are lighting up the sport like never before, a kid who was ranked as the 150th best player in the class of 2025 by 247 Sports has been absolutely sensational (16.1 points, 5.2 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game) for the Illini.

Missouri Valley

The Front-Runner:

Jaquan Johnson, Bradley

The Contenders:

Javon Jackson, Murray State
Tyler Lundblade, Belmont
Chase Walker, Illinois State

The Skinny:

This is an incredibly competitive mid-major race in a league where the respective fan bases are all going to have extreme opinions on which guy deserves top billing.

For now, the slight edge goes to Johnson, the 5’11 dynamo averaging a hair under 18 points per game for Bradley. If Murray State’s unexpected dominance of the league continues, however, it’ll be hard to not hand the hardware to Jackson.

Mountain West

The Front-Runner:

M.J. Collins Jr., Utah State

The Contenders:

Corey Camper Jr., Nevada
Mason Falslev, Utah State
Jake Hall, New Mexico

The Skinny:

He struggled a bit in Utah State’s upset loss at the hands of Grand Canyon, but M.J. Collins (20.1 ppg) has still without question been the Mountain West’s top individual performer so far this season. Potentially splitting some votes with teammate Mason Falslev feels like the only major obstacle in his way at the moment.

SEC

The Front-Runner:

Labaron Philon, Alabama

The Contenders:

Darius Acuff, Arkansas
Tyler Tanner, Vanderbilt
Thomas Haugh, Florida

The Skinny:

Throw a dart at any of these names and you could very easily be right.

Tanner has been a revelation for surprising Vandy, Acuff may have played himself into being the first point guard taken in this summer’s NBA Draft, and Haugh has looked like a First Team All-American during Florida’s resurgence.

For now, I’m rolling with Philon, who is putting up explosive numbers for an Alabama team that, while inconsistent, still has the ability to beat just about any team in the country on any given night. He hasn’t been held to single digits in a game so far this season, and his 21.9 ppg scoring average is the second-best in the SEC and the 10th-best in the country.

West Coast Conference

The Front-Runner:

Graham Ike, Gonzaga

The Contenders:

Paulius Murauskas, Saint Mary’s
Braden Huff, Gonzaga

The Skinny:

Huff’s recent knee injury almost certainly takes him out of the running, but I’m still listing him as a contender because of how good he’s been so far this year, and the potential for an early return and an outrageous final month.

Assuming that doesn’t happen, the winner here is likely going to be the player on the team that wins the conference. Ike and Murauskas are pretty evenly matched when it comes to their on-court accomplishments thus far, meaning whichever player (and team) shines the brightest in the pair of annual rivalry showdowns between the Zags and the Gaels will probably be your WCC POY.