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We root for teams in college basketball, but individual battles between elite players are what usually get us hyped leading up to games.

Had Michigan State and Oklahoma met in the 2016 NCAA tournament, there would have been an endless barrage of Denzel Valentine vs. Buddy Hield think pieces, and we would have voraciously gobbled them up. Even though Kentucky's Skal Labissiere had a dreadful freshman year, his matchup with LSU's Ben Simmons was all anyone could talk about before those two games.

With that in mind, we've pinpointed the 20 individual matchups that should generate the most buzz in the upcoming season.

Several of the best ones—Jayson Tatum vs. Josh Jackson and Markelle Fultz vs. Lonzo Ball, in particular—are duels between highly touted incoming freshmen. But we have plenty of veteran clashes on the list as well.

With one notable exception, each of these matchups is between players who play the same position and would actually be battling one another. Hield vs. Simmons was fun last year, but defense is half the battle, and those guys didn't defend each other.

Once paired, ranking boiled down to a fluid combination of NBA draft, Wooden Award and 2017 national championship implications. In other words, the more it matters in April and June, the more we need to watch it live.