Let’s dispense with the openers and jump right in: Naji Marshall is maybe the most important player on a top-20 (per KenPom) team that could mount a reasonable challenge in a major conference. Should the best come to be for the Musketeers and should Naji be as good as we’re all thinking (hoping?) he can be, there will be a case to be made that he’s the Big East Player of the Year. Here in October, though, it’s all speculation.
So let’s speculate. Here’s a chart with all of the players who have won BE POY since Xavier joined the league (Arcidiacono and Dunn shared the title in 2014-15), plus Naji’s numbers from last season:
| Doug McDermott | 2014 | 26. |