Johnny Davis, E.J. Liddell sit atop Katz's Player of Year Tiers
By Andy Katz
FOX Sports College Basketball Analyst
College basketball's player of the year chase is wide-open.
Sure, this phrase has been used plenty of times, but rarely have there been so many players who could end up in the chase for the honor.
Men’s college basketball has a slew of them — Naismith, Wooden, Robertson, Rupp, AP — and there is a good chance that this season there could be multiple winners.
That’s good for the game, allowing for plenty of interest in multiple teams throughout the conference season. But it’s not just for first-team All-American status. A league such as the Big Ten will have a hard time trying to finalize a first-team all-conference list.
These tiers are evolving and will change throughout the season.
Andy Katz's player of the year tiers I CBB on Fox
Tier 1: Player of the year leaders
2. EJ Liddell, Ohio State
6. Keegan Murray, Iowa
Tier 2: Making a push
1. Bennedict Mathurin, Arizona
2. Jabari Smith, Auburn
3. Drew Timme, Gonzaga
5. James Akinjo, Baylor
6. Jaden Ivey, Purdue
Tier 3: Hard to keep them this far down
2. Paolo Banchero, Duke
3. Chet Holmgren, Gonzaga
4. David Roddy, Colorado State
6. Kennedy Chandler, Tennessee
Tier 4: Don’t sleep on them
1. Johnny Juzang, UCLA
2. Jaime Jaquez Jr., UCLA
4. Jamaree Bouyea, San Francisco
6. Collin Gillespie, Villanova
Tier 5: Still time to make a run
1. Trayce Jackson-Davis, Indiana
3. Kendric Davis, SMU
4. Scotty Pippen Jr., Vanderbilt
5. Alondes Williams, Wake Forest
Andy Katz is a longtime college basketball writer, analyst and host. He can be seen on FOX Sports and Big Ten Network platforms, as well as March Madness and NCAA.com, and he hosts the podcast "March Madness 365." Katz worked at ESPN for nearly two decades and, prior to that, in newspapers for nine years.
