NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament: Ranking the Top 16 Players in the Sweet 16

Brackets set the stage for March Madness, but the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament is defined by its superstars.

This year’s Sweet 16 is overflowing with star power. Three of the five AP first-team All-Americans — Duke's Cameron Boozer, Arkansas' Darius Acuff Jr. and Michigan's Yaxel Lendeborg — are still alive, alongside a wave of future lottery picks and breakout performers ready to make their mark. The NCAA Tournament is as much about individual brilliance as it is about matchups, and the biggest names tend to shape how it all unfolds.

We’ve seen it before. Carmelo Anthony carried Syracuse to a title in 2003. Anthony Davis powered Kentucky to a championship in 2012. When the stage gets big, superstars take over.

That’s our formula for determining the top 16 players in the Sweet 16. Talent still leads the way, but this list is about who can most influence a team’s championship path from here. Arizona and UConn each placed multiple players on the list, while the other 14 are the only representatives from their respective programs.

With that, here is our list, counting down from 16-1.

Alex Karaban #11 of the UConn Huskies celebrates after defeating UCLA (Photo by Emilee Chinn/Getty Images)

As a fifth-year senior who spent his entire career at UConn, where he's already won two national titles and is now chasing a third, Karaban embodies everything that is still great about college basketball in an era defined by constant player movement. Karaban has developed from a scrawny, moderately recruited role player into the "brain center," as head coach Dan Hurley likes to call him, of UConn's incredibly complex offense. He's averaging 24.5 points per game with eight made 3-pointers during this year's NCAA Tournament, willing