I will tell you right now, it’s late. It’s my son’s birthday when he wakes up in a few hours (I’ll being doing all kinds of stuff with him & the family all the while trying to catch up on on the tourney action from the DVR as the day unfolds and I avoid sports media), but I really wanted to present my 2016 NCAA Tourney player rankings in a different way – and my mind wouldn’t settle until I got this done. Here’s the fruits of my labor this night:

Yes, it is what it sounds like – I included the final ratings of all rotation players from the past 20 NCAA champions into the ratings going into this tourney of the rotation players of all 68 tourney teams. I figured it would help people maybe get some perspective on some players they might not have yet gotten a chance to watch by seeing their rating breakdowns next to past players they remember fondly (or, not so fondly).

Yes, Denzel Valentine has been THAT good this season.

Now understand, I am fully capable of running similarity scores and such between these players – and was going to do so for this article – but I just didn’t have nearly enough time to get to it. I will probably run similarity scores of past champion players to current tourney players on twitter, for anyone who asks. So, feel free to tweet me and ask about any player you’d like. Or, comment below.

Man, I’m seriously tired. So, note the above spreadsheet has two pages. The first is the normal way I present all the ratings, stats, rating breakdowns, etc. – all fully sortable. The second deals with skill set breakdowns specifically, seeing who impacts games the most when they are on the court – and how they do it. It also shows where player statistical deficiencies lie. Play around with it, I wanted it to be easy for people to get a feel for any player. Enjoy.