Jarvis Varnado might be the best shot-blocker the college game has seen since David Robinson. The reigning two-time SEC Defensive Player of the Year led a Bulldogs unit that, on its way to an unlikely conference tournament crown, held opponents to 61.5 points per in four games, which included holding Tennessee a full 18 points below its season average (79 ppg) in Sunday’s championship game.

At 6-foot-9 with a 7-4 wingspan, Varnado averaged 5.5 blocks per game in the SEC tourney, boosting his total for the season to 165 — an SEC record and best in the nation — and continues to put distance between himself and Erick Dampier as MSU’s all-time leading rejecter. “He’s one of those guys who doesn’t just block shots in his area, he’ll go out of his area,” Bulldogs coach Rick Stansbury told me in Varnado’s profile in Dime #43 last summer. “He doesn’t just block his guy’s shot, he moves and gets other guy’s shots.”

Still a work in progress — he needs to add more bulk to his frame before moving on to the next level — Varnado is developing more of an offensive game (13 ppg) and is becoming a more consistent rebounder (9 rpg). But for the time being, he stands out as the most important defensive player in this year’s NCAA Tournament field. The Top Five:

1. Jarvis Varnado, C/PF, Mississippi State, Jr.
His first-round matchup with Washington’s Jon Brockman could be on-par with Leonidas vs. Xerxes.

2. Hasheem Thabeet, C, UConn, Jr.
The Big East DPOY blocks 4.6 shots night and is projected to be a Top-3 pick in this year’s NBA Draft.

3. Eric Maynor, PG, Virginia Commonwealth, Sr.
Duke fans and Duke haters can’t forget Maynor’s one-man destruction of Greg Paulus and Co. in the Dance two years ago. No point guard in the country wants to see the Colonial League POY (22.4 ppg, 6.2 apg, 1.7 spg) in their face for 40 minutes as they try to bring up the ball. And in one of the best head-to-head matchups of the Tournament, Maynor gets UCLA’s Darren Collison in the first round.

4. Jerel McNeal, SG, Marquette, Sr.
McNeal’s defensive prowess on the perimeter is nothing new; but this year he also turned himself into a lethal scorer (19.7 ppg, 2.1 spg). He had eight games this year with four-plus steals, including a six-theft game against DePaul.

5. Andre McGee, PG, Louisville, Sr.
As I wrote in my column picking Louisville to win it all, McGee (1.1 spg) is the shark at the head of Rick Pitino’s stifling pressure D, disrupting opposing offenses and kick-starting the fast break.

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