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When the 2023-23 college basketball season tips off on Monday (Memphis at Vanderbilt headlines Day 1 — get excited!) the race for the men’s national player of the year will also begin.

It’s a unique dynamic in this race: Kentucky’s Oscar Tshiebwe is the first returning national player of the year since Tyler Hansbrough, but last season’s preseason consensus pick, Gonzaga’s Drew Timme, also came back to school. As did a host of other recognizable names, many of whom show up in this three-round snake draft from five of our experts: Eamonn Brennan, Seth Davis, Brian Hamilton, Dana O’Neil and Brendan Quinn. The simple goal: Correctly predict who will win the national player of the year awards in March.

Dana won first pick, and she’s on the clock.

Round 1

Round 1, Pick 1: Drew Timme, Gonzaga

Go ahead and call me the Portland Trail Blazers, the buffoons who took Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan because I’m not taking Kentucky’s Oscar Tshiebwe. Send the criticism. I can take it. Now here’s my argument: In the history of the Naismith Player of the Year award, dating back to 1969, only two players have been repeat winners — Bill Walton and Ralph Sampson, who each won it three times. So I’m going with the odds, and I’m also going with logic. The Zags need Timme to be overpowering more than the Wildcats need Tshiebwe this season. Hence he’ll have bigger and badder numbers, and this is always a numbers game. I also think Timme is ticked that he didn’t live up to his own preseason billing a year ago, and I trust John Calipari’s assessment of Tshiebwe’s “minor” knee procedure and issue about as far as I can throw Tshiebwe. — Dana O’Neil

Round 1, Pick 2: Oscar Tshiebwe, Kentucky

OK, so I actually love Dana’s pick. Coming in, I assumed that she would go with Oscar, who, having won the award with one of the great rebounding seasons of all time, is the obvious preseason favorite again this fall. Thus, I could take someone else, like Timme, avoiding the need to have Oscar repeat, which is going to be extremely difficult even if he meets his 2021-22 standard of dominance. Look back at the past 10 or 20 POY winners. It’s better to swerve. Dana swerved. Alas.

Of course, if the worst-case scenario here is drafting Big Oscar, then I suppose I can deal. It’s hard to overstate just how good he was last season; maybe one or two guys were as good in the past half-century. Living up to that won’t be easy, but at the same time, the precedent for a player like this staying in school after winning the award in the past 30 years is almost nil. The NBA is no home for true bigs, and these guys can now get paid in college in ways they couldn’t remotely approach until last year. The world is suddenly very different, and the idea of a guy like Oscar repeating doesn’t seem so farfetched. He’s here, isn’t he? — Eamonn Brennan

Round 1, Pick 3: Hunter Dickinson, Michigan

Certainly feels like the safest/best pick here. Another dominant big. Another guy who, once upon a time, would be long gone from college ball.

First off, we know Dickinson will put up mega-numbers. He averaged 19 points, nine boards and two assists last season. What we don’t know is just how much Dickinson can improve as a junior. Let’s look at this way — if Dickinson’s sophomore season was the first step in him broadening his game, why can’t he take another one as a junior? There’s no reason to think he’s hit a ceiling. Hell, even if he did, he could still be even more dominant this time around.

While the obvious value is brute size and power (7-foot-1, 255) combined with a deep bag of low-post tricks, Dickinson stepped out and hit 21 3s on 33 percent shooting last season after going 0 of 4 as a freshman. He’ll only be that much more comfortable this season. Likewise, considering some of the unknowns on Michigan’s roster, Juwan Howard is going to be most comfortable both dialing up Dickinson inside and outside, and running offense through him. The big man is going to feast.

As far as POY chances go? Maybe that depends as much on Michigan as it does on Dickinson. If the Wolverines compete for a Big Ten title — after finishing four games back last season — they’ll do so on Dickinson’s shoulders. He’ll have less around him than Timme and Tshiebwe, so perhaps his POY campaign will carry a little more weight than the others. All I know is, no matter what Dickinson does, we’re going to hear about it. — Brendan Quinn

Round 1, Pick 4: Marcus Sasser, Houston

I’m a sucker for a good storyline, but I also like winning these fantasy drafts. (Though you wouldn’t know it by my standing in my family’s NFL fantasy league.) So of course I’m going with Sasser. In the first place, he’s coming off a foot injury that cost him most of last season. Sasser was looking very much like an All-American (17.7 points per game on 43.7 percent 3-point shooting, to go along with 2.8 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 2.2 steals) when he had to shut it down in late December. That checks the feel-good comeback box. Sasser has also had plenty of time to recover from that setback, and though he entered the NBA Draft and played in the Chicago combine, he was not a first-round lock and thus decided to come back to college. Score one for motivation. Plus, Sasser is the best player on a top-five team. He’ll be on everybody’s radar, all season. That gives him a very high VQ (visibility quotient, and yes, I just made that up).

But the really, truly, irresistible storyline is that the Final Four is taking place in Houston. It’s almost too good to be true. The Cougars will have the POY, and he could end up as the MOP of the Final Four. And I will have my one shining moment for having the foresight to draft him. — Seth Davis

Round 1, Pick 5: Jaime Jaquez, Jr., UCLA

Ah, drafts at The Athletic. How I’ve missed you. Who can resist the opportunity to be terrible at something while also cursing young people who did nothing to deserve their fate? But I digress. This is not about me. (Apologies in advance, though.)

Since I’m the guy who voted Jaquez in our preseason national player of the year predictions, might as well double down. Though down here at the end of the first round, I don’t consider it to be a bad bet. Candidates for this award usually come from good teams, and UCLA will be good. Jaquez probably shifts into a go-to role, too, even with a five-star freshman like Amari Bailey on hand. He averaged 20 points and eight rebounds across three Pac-12 tournament games before coming back to earth a bit in the NCAA Tournament. But Jaquez at least will have the chance to replicate those kinds of numbers, particularly if his 3-point accuracy goes from non-existent to decent. Plus, being one of the nation’s premier defenders might provide some extra credit in voters’ minds.

UCLA’s non-conference schedule makes it a somewhat tougher uphill climb, if only because Jaquez won’t have as many VQ-friendly games as others. (I like it, Seth.) But show out against Illinois or Kentucky, and Jaquez at least enters the conversation. — Brian Hamilton

Round 2

Round 2, Pick 6: Caleb Love, UNC

Extremely Michael Caine in “The Dark Knight” voice: Some men just want to watch the world burn.

I don’t expect Love to be consistent enough to win this award. I don’t even know if I expect North Carolina to be as good as everyone expects it will be. But I do know that Armando Bacot won’t differentiate himself from the Timmes and Tshiebwes and Dickinsons if he’s roughly the same player he was as a junior. And if we’re doing this exercise to win, then I don’t want to pick a guy whose candidacy is paralyzed by comparison.

Love, meanwhile, has the flammability to inspire memes and break social media channels and create all sorts of momentum. If he actually burst into flames on the floor, nobody would be surprised. Come anywhere near sustained scoring excellence for a team as frequently televised as North Carolina, and he’ll be too much to resist. It’s The Love Boat, friends. Come aboard. We’re expecting you. — Hamilton

Round 2, Pick 7: Trayce Jackson-Davis, Indiana

Thank you, everyone, for leaving me Trayce Jackson-Davis. I have a lot of respect for that guy. He came to Indiana as an in-state McDonald’s All-American who was supposed to turn around the program’s fortunes, and then jet off to the NBA after one season. Not only did he not do so, but his coach, Archie Miller, got fired after his sophomore season. Jackson-Davis could have tried to turn pro following the coaching change, but instead, he came back last year to play for Mike Woodson. He had a terrific junior season, and he got the Hoosiers back into the NCAA Tournament, albeit as a First Four entrant. Once again, Jackson-Davis came back for more. He’s an old-school college player if ever there was one.

True, if Jackson-Davis had better pro options, he would have taken them, but for some inexplicable reason he hasn’t developed a 3-point shot. Scratch that – he hasn’t made a 3-point shot. Okay, fine, he’s not a future NBA All-Star, but he’s a darn good college player who averaged 18.3 points (on 58.9 percent shooting), 8.1 rebounds and 2.3 blocks as a junior. TJD rejoins a team in Bloomington that is the preseason favorite in the Big Ten. Woodson is in Year 2 in Indiana, so everyone should be more comfortable. It’s not hard to envision a scenario where the Hoosiers win the league and advance in the NCAA Tournament, which would enhance Jackson-Davis’ case for national player of the year. He’s a first-rate second-round pick for me. — Davis

Round 2, Pick 8: Armando Bacot, UNC

I nearly used this pick on a flier before realizing I was overthinking things. Brian Hamilton is a good man — smart, tall, handsome — but I’m not quite buying the Armando Bacot logic above. Because, well … what if Bacot is better than he was as a junior? It’s possible when considering he got better during last season.

Bacot averaged 17.3 points on 69 percent shooting and 14 rebounds in 36 minutes per game over UNC’s seven games leading into the NCAA Tournament. We’d have been talking about him more then, but no one was really buying the Heels yet. They were an eight seed for a reason. Then Bacot averaged 15.3 points, 16.5 rebounds, 2 assists and 1.5 blocks in 34 minutes over six NCAA Tournament games. He was pretty awesome, despite going 3 of 13 in the national title game.

Bacot can absolutely be better as a senior, starting at the free-throw line, where he’s gradually climbed from 64 to 66 to 67 percent. He’s also the only player here capable of putting up Tshiebwe-esque rebounding numbers. Let’s remember some of last year’s performances: 29 and 22 vs Virginia, 19 and 22 at Louisville, 28 and 18 vs N.C. State, 17 and 14 vs Florida State, 23 and seven in one win vs Duke, 11 and 21 in the other.

If Bacot is in the 19 ppg/16 rpg range and Carolina is everything it’s being made up to be, why not him? Let’s consider, Bacot finished 10th in Kenpom’s final kPOY standings last season. Of the nine players who finished ahead of him — Tshiebwe, Keegan Murray, Timme, Chet Holmgren, EJ Liddell, Orlando Robinson, Paulo Banchero, Kofi Cockburn and Tari Eason — only two are still in college basketball.

This doesn’t feel like a stretch. — Quinn

Round 2, Pick 9: Kris Murray, Iowa

Having as I do plenty of contact with Iowa fans IRL, it’s sort of incredible the extent to which they’ve all come to assume that Kris is the new Keegan. The elder Murray brother just finished an All-America year as the purest of pure scorers at Iowa, was just taken fourth overall in the NBA Draft, and bam: Up steps Kris, just as good if not better, seamless, no problem.

And here’s the thing: They’re probably right?

Everything about Murray’s game last year suggests he’s ready to be just as elite, and in basically similar ways, as his brother, albeit with one more year of developmental seasoning. He is already basically as good from 3 as was Keegan; if he approaches the same efficiency and maneuver inside the arc, then look out. And he will be playing in the same tidy Iowa system that seems to always produce gaudy offensive numbers for everyone involved, particularly the stars around which the whole thing revolves.

And if big guys dominating the low block aren’t your (or the public’s) aesthetic thing, perhaps a 6-foot-8 outside-in wing shooter will be more to everyone’s taste. Preseason player metrics (like Evan Miyakawa’s MVP rankings) already have him ranked as high as fifth. You could see him making a real run at this thing. — Brennan

Round 2, Pick 10: Nick Smith Jr., Arkansas

Thanks, fellas. Late in the draft and you’re leaving me a gimme (after I already got a Timme). I really do appreciate the chivalry.

So what happens when you take arguably the best freshman in the country and combine him with Eric Musselman? I’m not sure, but I know it will be entertaining. Musselman loves him some guards. Look at that. Smith is a guard. Musselman’s teams can score. Look at that. The Razorbacks lost their top four scorers, which means someone has to fill that void. Enter Smith, who averaged 26.3 points per game in high school.

This is a marriage made in Hog heaven. Smith is going to put up numbers because someone has to if Arkansas is going to realize its preseason expectations. And if the Razorbacks aspire to the heights that have been set for them? Everyone will be talking about Smith.

Easy. Peasy. — O’Neil

Round 3

Round 3, Pick 11: Baylor Scheierman, Creighton

Bold? Perhaps. Hang with me, though. This is the best Bluejays team since Doug McDermott, and a team coming in hot just as Villanova is reconfiguring itself without Jay Wright. Player of the year voters like winners. Creighton should win, and win big.

Now there are a lot of options to choose from in Omaha. Tempted to go with Ryan Kalkbenner, I’m not going to lie but I’m sticking with my theory that scoring points matters in these player of the year contests. We voters are nothing if not attracted to the shiny objects.

Which is why I’m going with Scheierman. The weird thing about Creighton last year is it was better defensively than offensively, which is not a very Creighton thing. Scheierman was brought in from South Dakota State largely to correct that. He’s an elite shooter — 47 percent from beyond the arc — who averaged 16.2 points last year on a team where everyone knew he had to star. Imagine what he can do when defenses have to pick their poison. — O’Neil

Round 3, Pick 12: Zach Edey, Purdue

How has no one taken Zach Edey yet?! A couple of reasons I can think of. One, Purdue is an open question this year, and who knows what the rest of that rotation, particularly the backcourt, is going to look like by the time Matt Painter gets his arms around it. Maybe the Boilermakers won’t be that good, and so maybe Edey won’t have a fair chance at POY honors. Two, he’s a big, unfussy, let’s-just-say-it plodding 7-foot-4 center who isn’t going to impress anyone who wants their best players to have a bag. Edey’s bag is “Hey, I’m tall, throw me the ball under here.” It worked for George Mikan. It works still.

Those soft factor considerations aside, there is very little objective reason not to include Edey as among the potential favorites to win this thing. Reminder: He played 19 minutes a game last season. Just 19. His timeshare with Trevion Williams was distorting, in terms of his counting stats and value to his team, because during those 19 minutes he posted the highest offensive rebounding rate in the country (yes, higher than Tshiebwe), shot 65 percent from the field, and averaged 14.4 points (!), 7.7 rebounds (!!) and 1.2 blocks (!!!). His per-40 averages were: 30.3 points, 16.2 rebounds, 2.5 blocks. (Insert Vince McMahon falling back into his chair meme here.)

Edey isn’t going to play 40 minutes a game this season. But he’s going to play a lot more than 19. And if he produces at anything like the rates he did last season, he is going to be one of the most purely productive big men in recent college hoops history. He’s a steal! — Brennan

Round 3, Pick 13: Jalen Wilson, Kansas

After a strong lean toward Julian Strawther, a dose of common sense said the best player on the defending national champion might be a safer pick.

Jalen Wilson in an Ochai Agbaji-less world is highly intriguing. One way or another, the Jayhawks have to replace Agbaji’s 19 points and 14 FGAs per game. If not for Tshiebwe, Agbaji might’ve brought down last year’s NPOY honors.

Wilson averaged 11 points, seven boards and two assists in 2021-22, but that was as a willing complementary piece. Now it’s his turn to take over in a starring role. Kansas is certainly used to upperclassmen taking huge strides later in their careers. In the last decade alone — Agbaji, Devonte’ Graham, Frank Mason and Thomas Robinson.

So how can Wilson take a significant step forward to join that group? He shot 26.1 percent on 3s last season, but that was after starting 1 of 23 over the opening 10 games. He shot 35 percent over the remainder of the regular season and spent this offseason working on his form. If that work delivers consistent results, coupling with Wilson’s all-around game, this might be plausible. Wilson ranked third in the Big 12 in 2-point shooting (64 percent), sixth in free-throw rate (41.6), seventh in defensive rebound rate (19.4), 19th in offensive rebound rate (6.5) and first in offensive rating (123.6).

At this stage in the picks, this … feels like the play. — Quinn

Round 4, Pick 14: Dereck Lively II, Duke

Only three freshmen have won the men’s Naismith Award for National Player of the Year — Kevin Durant, Anthony Davis, and Zion Williamson. So it doesn’t happen often, but it’s not unprecedented, and there are a couple of realistic candidates for this season. Dana already plucked one of them in Arkansas’ Nick Smith, so I’ll take Duke’s Dereck Lively II. He’s a little banged up right now with a sore calf, but that’s a minor injury for a player who has major potential. At 7-1, 230 pounds, Lively has a grown man’s body. He is long, agile and bouncy, and he will give Duke the same type of rim protection that Mark Williams did the last two years.

Offensively, Lively has the ability to put the ball on the deck, finish in traffic, and step well away from the basket (including behind the 3-point line) to get his buckets. It remains to be seen how well his basketball IQ and feel translate to the college level, but he was the No. 1 ranked player in the 247Sports Composite index. Those guys usually translate well. Lively could be the best and most important player on a top-five team that has the talent to win an NCAA championship in Jon Scheyer’s first year as head coach. As third-round POY picks go, this guy is a slam dunk. — Davis

Round 4, Pick 15: Adam Flagler, Baylor

Seth’s intro had me thinking he’d make it easy on me and take Keyonte George, but he also made my case for not taking Keyonte George. If it’s required to be a generational talent in order to stand out enough as a freshman to win national player of the year … then as many points as George scores, it’s still a long shot that he’ll take home the hardware.

So, naturally, why not take an even longer shot?

When you have the 15th pick in this exercise, it’s time to contemplate all the player of the year winners who were not odds-on favorites to begin a given season and make an informed dice roll. Flagler is that educated guess. He already led Baylor in scoring last season. I looked at his shooting from 3-point range and per-40-minute numbers and Baylor likely being in contention for a No. 1 seed throughout the season … and I start to think Frank Mason. And Jalen Brunson. And Devonte’ Graham. (Who didn’t win the Naismith Award but certainly was a top candidate.) Older guards who put up really good numbers but also get credit for being the catalyzing agent for a very good team.

Put it this way: If Flagler takes and makes two more shots a game than he did as a junior, and dishes out two to three more assists per game, then his raw averages will look a lot like those of the aforementioned trio.  And it’s not a crazy ask, given that Baylor’s offense is No. 4 nationally in KenPom.com’s preseason ratings. Maybe it’s all relative. Maybe that’s not enough for Flagler to stand out regardless. But what do I have to lose here, anyway?

(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; Photos: Abbie Parr, Andy Lyons, Justin Casterline / Getty Images)