The operatics of the men’s NCAA Tournament are built-in. Drama is a feature, not a glitch. All that’s left to sort out is who’s responsible for tilting his program’s fortunes, one way or another.
Behold: the 10 most intriguing players in the 2024 field. This isn’t a ranking of the best talent — though there might be some crossover — but rather a guide to some of the most watchable and consequential fellas on the floor.
Maybe you’ve seen every available minute of college basketball this season. Maybe this is the first you’ve heard of the sport. There’s something — or somebody — here for everyone to latch on to over the next three weekends.
In alphabetical order:
The 7-footer positioned to be one of the lead villains in the 2023-24 season has been … well, a little less notorious than usual, at least from a hate-magnet standpoint. Still, it would be difficult to identify a player more comfortable with antagonizing the opponent and an already hostile crowd while also producing at an All-America level: 18 points and 10.8 rebounds per game.
Which brings us to subplots. First, Dickinson triumphantly returns to the NCAA Tournament after leaving a Michigan program that devolved into a dumpster fire, making one of the greatest transfer decisions in recent memory. Second, he dislocated his shoulder and missed the Big 12 tournament, but is expected to play this week. At some point soon, Dickinson’s performance and swagger for a Final Four contender will compel a nationwide audience to take sides.
Sort through various counting statistics and advanced metrics, and the 6-foot-2, 170-pound freshman doesn’t register as the most valuable player on John Calipari’s roster. Poll Kentucky fans for the best player on the team and you’ll likely hear senior wing Antonio Reeves or freshman sensation Reed Sheppard come up more often. But is there a better pure shotmaker and playmaker among the Wildcats than Dillingham, in a win-or-go-home event where one singular performance can change an entire season?
He’s Kentucky’s leading scorer and assist-giver on a per-40-minute basis (26.5 and 6.7 per 40, respectively), and he’s come off the bench in 30 of 31 games. He’s had nights like 35 points in 27 minutes against Tennessee … and days like six points in 18 minutes against Gonzaga, two games later. The angst and expectation in Lexington have reached peak levels, if not soaring beyond them. Dillingham is that player who can be the difference between state-wide furor and or bliss.
There is very little question about what the 7-foot-4, 300-pound, likely two-time national Player of the Year can do, performance-wise. As of Selection Sunday, Edey has averaged a nation-leading 24.4 points and 11.7 rebounds per game for a No. 1 seed. But he’s also the avatar for a program attempting to overcome debilitating March sadness: The top-seeded Boilermakers lost to No. 16 seed Fairleigh Dickinson in the 2023 tournament — the second time ever such an upset has happened — which only extended an era in which the program has been knocked out of the NCAA Tournament by a double-digit seed four times since 2016, including the last three straight.
Can the most dominant figure in men’s hoops dominate in March and bring the program to its first Final Four since 1980? Can the supporting cast keep the floor open for Edey or save the day if defenses commit multiple bodies to frustrate him on the block? Will Purdue’s way work all the way to Glendale, Ariz., or will the ground give way long before?
The 6-7 fifth-year senior won MAC Player of the Year honors and as of Selection Sunday was averaging 18.6 points and a nation-best 12.9 rebounds per game. But production isn’t the story here. Freeman had zero Division I scholarship offers out of high school. Zero. He took an academic scholarship to Akron and tried out for a walk-on spot with the Zips. He played 13 minutes as a freshman … then grew four inches. Now Freeman is one of the most valuable players in the country, ranking third nationally in Win Shares (7.4) as of the bracket reveal. An incredible climb.
New Mexico’s Jaelen House is relentless. (Troy Babbitt / USA Today)
Jaelen House, New Mexico
The country might not be ready for the Lobos. Teams almost assuredly won’t be ready for the mouthpiece-gnawing, 6-foot-1 senior guard who plays like his finger is permanently stuck in an electrical outlet. House is the NCAA’s active career leader in steals and also New Mexico’s most combustible scorer. There’s probably no explaining just how relentless House is until you’re out there suffering through it on both ends. Meanwhile, the television cameras are sure to find proud papa Eddie House — he of the 2,044 career points at the college level, followed by a 10-year NBA career.
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He’s the human torch, basically. The 6-foot-6 guard has as much thermonuclear scoring ability as anyone in the field, occasionally finding his way into a zone of preposterousness that turns any defense — man, zone, double-teams, triple-teams face-guarding — into ash. Ask North Carolina (37 points for Knecht that night) or Florida (39 points) or Auburn (another 39), among others. All this after starting his college career at Northeastern (Colo.) Junior College and then going from 8.9 points per game to 20.2 across two seasons at Northern Colorado. Knecht crashed the big-time as one of the most impactful transfers in the country. Tennessee could ride his hot hand all the way to the desert.
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The 6-foot-4 guard has lived in a slingshot for the past three seasons. He was a low-efficiency but high-effectiveness scorer for a North Carolina team that reached the national championship game in 2022. He returned to Chapel Hill and effectively absorbed the blame for a 2022-23 season that was one of the most disappointing in program history; the Tar Heels went from preseason No. 1 to missing the postseason entirely while Love took a career-high 15.1 shots per game and made only 37.8 percent of them. He tried to transfer to Michigan but the school overrode the plan due to academics. Only then did Love head for Tucson, with one final chance to prove he is the player he claims to be.
Now he’s the Pac-12 Player of the Year for a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament, with career highs in scoring (18.1 points per game), effective field goal shooting percentage (51.0) and Win Shares (4.8). His story is polarizing and mesmerizing. The ending isn’t written yet. And if the seeds hold and Arizona makes it to the Elite Eight, it would play … North Carolina.
Arguably the most dogged competitor you might not have heard of, at least among these 68 teams. Stevens is merely 6-foot and listed at 185 pounds but he’s nevertheless a pillar. He’s now made five All-Mountain West squads in five seasons. He’s started every game but one in his career. He’s never shot less than 46 percent from the floor for a season, never averaged fewer than 32.6 minutes per game and enters the NCAA Tournament with 2,335 career points and 855 career assists. His Win Shares total of 5.4 in 2023-24 is also a career-best. Stevens, for all he’s done and for all he’s accomplished, has never been more valuable than he is now.
Also he’s the sort of guard who decides the opponent is his mortal enemy and takes defensive game plans as a personal affront. Colorado State is not the sort of team you want to see in the first weekend, at least, mostly because Stevens is not the guy you want to see on the floor, waiting for his chance to destroy you.
The Cornhuskers are the lone power-conference program to never have won an NCAA Tournament game. Tominaga’s thermonuclear shooting potential is the reason that could change. He’s a 6-foot-2 lefty Japanese guard who started at a junior college in Texas and wound up as a second-team All-Big Ten player in his final season. Tominaga has had 10 games in which he’s only scored in single-digits, but it’s his ability to go on a massive heater — like 18 first-half points in a Big Ten tournament quarterfinal against Indiana – that is the danger. And, simply, no one plays with more pure joy.
The 6-foot, sixth-year guard is the engine for a Cowboys squad led by Will Wade, who ran afoul of the NCAA rule book to the tune of a firing at LSU in 2022 and a 10-game suspension to start this season — and who seems to be reveling in his renegade past. (“Willy the Kid is free,” read a video released by the school before his return.) But that’s hardly the most interesting part.
Wells began playing college basketball in 2017 at Tyler (Texas) Junior College. He then made a one-year stopover at UT-Arlington before heading to TCU, where he averaged 15.6 minutes and 5.2 points per game across two seasons. Finally, at McNeese State, he’s having the season of his life: 17.8 points per game on 50.3 percent shooting on 2-pointers and 40.2 percent efficiency from 3-point range, while adding three steals per game and, as of Selection Sunday, ranking fifth in the nation in defensive rating (87.9), according to Basketball Reference. An old, weathered, pugnacious, undersized guard who can impact the game on both ends? It’s the start of many Cinderella tales … even if in this case she’s traded the glass slippers for rusty spurs.
(Top photo of Dalton Knecht, Caleb Love and Keisei Tominaga: Kirby Lee, Hannah Mattix and Matt Krohn/ USA Today)
