Bracket Busters to Lottery Winners

In the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, better known as the 64-team March Madness, players and teams have plenty on the line. Teams are trying to gain national attention, hoping to either be the year’s ‘Cinderella’ and exceed all expectations, or prove their ranking correct, and win their way into the Final Four. Players also are looking to win for their team, their personal pride, and improving their draft stock in the minds of NBA teams. There are multiple players who are considered ‘on the bubble’ to be chosen, or chosen in the first round, or even chosen in the lottery (top 14 picks). Along with saying what my predictions are for the remaining part of March Madness, I’ll also try and predict those who will make a great name for themselves in this years tournament, along with those whose draft stock will free fall.

First, I think that Arizona. will be able to beat Cleveland State, and cement itself as the Cinderella of this year. Also, I still don’t see how everyone remains on the Oklahoma bandwagon. Though they have probable first-pick Blake Griffin (more on his body of work later in this post), but beyond him and point guard Willie Warren I don’t believe they have enough depth to make a strong push in this lengthy tournament. My picks for the rest of the tournament go as follows:

Elite Eight – Pitt v. Duke; UNC v. Syracuse; Memphis v. UConn; Louisville v. Michigan St.

Final Four – Pitt v. Syracuse; UConn v. Louisville

Championship Game – Pitt v. Louisville

National Champion – Louisville

And now the players I have hand-picked to tear up this tournament, making it their personal ‘Hello!’ to the NBA draft gurus, and soon to become lottery winners.

1) Eric Devendorf – If you haven’t heard of the point guard from Syracuse by now, you definitely will when he outperforms UNC point guard extraordinaire Ty Lawson in their Elite Eight matchup. He can drill 3-pointers in crunch time, loves to drive the lane, and is really connecting with his teammates which makes for some nice assists. His teammate Jonny Flynn might be the only other guard which can threaten Devendorf’s blast onto the national stage, but I believe Syracuse would love to see both their star guards lighting it up in front of a national audience.

2) Blake Griffin – Superman? Not yet, wait till he has to post-up against Dwight Howard, but you can definitely see where this Oklahoma power forward gets that nickname from while making plays like this

3) Connor Atchley – Kansas power forward, who gets triple doubles. There’s not much more  to be said, because this Kansas team is extremely balanced, and yet this man is still finding ways to get such gaudy stats.

4) Earl Clark – I might be having a power-forward love fest right now, with 3 of my 4 rising stars being of that position, but each of them has been different. Griffin is a super-athletic, freak of a man of the Carlos Boozer-Dwight Howard mold. Connor Atchley has seemed like a slightly shorter version of Dirk Nowitzki. Earl Clark is a whole new breed, a better version of Boris Diaw, or better yet a big version of Stephen Jackson (minus the technical fouls). He is a point-forward, who can bruise downlow but can shoot a pretty arcing three-pointer which really spreads the defense.

Earl Clark - One of my Rising Stars. Louisville - Will be lead by Clark and become National Champions.

(photo credit: http://playingthedozens.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/earlclark.jpg)

Disgraced

There is an article in the New York Times, which upon reading I found to contain an extremely appalling story.

The gist of the story is: Binghamton is a Division I college, which is new to the division, and hired a controversial coach who recruits good players, with questionable backgrounds (such as drugs, bad academic records, arrests). He did what he’s always done, which is to get these types of players, and now the team is the top in the American East Conference. However, players such as D. J. Rivera, who was the best player on the best team in the division, will not earn any awards. The coaches vote on the player awards in the conference, and they essentially ‘blackballed’ Binghamton into not getting any awards. It is an apparent protest against the coach’s recruiting ideas, yet this is horrible towards the players. What exactly did Rivera do to deserve this, besides working extremely hard to become the best in the conference? This type of petty, child-like protest disgusts me, because the coaches should have gone to the NCAA committee, instead of potentially destroying the Binghamton players possible basketball careers. Disgraceful.