Junior Connor O'Brien of the Bradley baseball team is off to a flying start to the 2022 season and now six weeks into the campaign, he is ranked among the nation's best first basemen.
In D1Baseball's updated power rankings, O'Brien is the NCAA's seventh-best first baseman. Improving his spot 10 places from his preseason rank of No. 17, O'Brien is also the top-ranked first baseman in the Missouri Valley Conference – Illinois State's Jake McCaw is 26th and Dallas Baptist's Cole Moore is 30th. Additionally, O'Brien is the top-ranked player outside a Power 5 conference as the six players ahead of him all come from the ACC, Big 12 and SEC.