March is here once again, and that can only mean one thing for sports fans everywhere: the NCAA Tournament. Here are some of the burning questions heading into this year’s version of the madness:
WHO ARE THE FAVORITES?
Louisville come into the tournament playing as well as anyone in the nation after winning the Big East Tournament to earn a No. 1 seed. Junior Earl Clark is a do-it-all swingman who paced the team with 14 points per game during the regular season. He’s also a presence in the paint, leading the team in rebounds. Terrence Williams and Samardo Samuels also average double figure points.
Top-seeded North Carolina is also a team with title aspirations. Despite being upset in the ACC Tournament semis, they still have one of the most experienced and talented teams in the 65-team field. Tyler Hansbrough (21.4 ppg, 8.2 rpg) and Ty Lawson (15.9 ppg, 6.5 apg) are one of the top inside-outside duos in the country. Lawson is battling a toe injury, but is expected to play throughout the tourney. Junior Wayne Ellington and senior Danny Green join Lawson as top-notch threats from the outside, as both possess deadly 3-point shots that will come in handy in postseason play. Carolina certainly has the talent to go all the way.
WHO ARE THIS YEAR’S SLEEPERS?
You can never predict a Cinderella like George Mason, but there are some teams a bit off the radar that look poised to make a run.
It’s always a good thing to play your way to a higher seed by performing in the conference tournament, and No. 5-seeded Florida State did just that by advancing all the way to the tournament finals in a very strong ACC, upsetting North Carolina along the way. The ‘Noles have a top-notch scorer and defender in Toney Douglas of Jonesboro High. Former Dunwoody High star Chris Singleton’s presence on campus this season was also crucial in the team’s first tourney appearance since the 1997-98 season.
Like FSU, Purdue looks to have its best team in ages. The Boilermakers also stepped up their play in the conference tourney, winning their first Big Ten Tournament title. Sophomores E’Twaun Moore and Jajuan Johnson have shown why they were both highly coveted recruits two years ago. And Robbie Hummel joins them to form a formidable trio that makes them a very tough team to match up with.
WHO IS THIS YEAR’S STEPHEN CURRY?
Each year we see a player take the tournament by storm, mesmerizing fans nationwide with great performance after great performance to push his seemingly undermanned team to the next level. That player was Stephen Curry last season, but Curry’s Davidson Wildcats aren’t going dancing this year, so someone else will have to take the torch from him.
The aforementioned Florida State Seminoles are a sleeper for one reason: Toney Douglas is one of the nation’s top scorers (21.1 ppg), and he can put the ‘Noles on his back. It’s certainly not inconceivable that he could do that again over the next several weeks.
We already saw what Eric Maynor could do in the tournament when he sent Duke packing three years ago in a first-round upset. This year the senior is having the best season of his great career, dropping 22.4 points and 6.2 assists per game, and convincing many NBA scouts that he will be a lottery pick this spring in the process.
WHICH TOP SEEDS WILL GO OUT EARLY?
Big Ten teams have been crashing out of the tournament early a lot lately; could the No. 2-seeded Michigan State Spartans follow that trend? Tom Izzo’s team showed some flaws in its Big Ten Tournament loss to Ohio State. The Spartans also underperformed in the non-conference schedule, losing to Maryland by 18 and getting drilled by North Carolina by 35 points in December.
They don’t have a definitive go-to guy (Kalin Lucas is the closest to playing that role). And they have a tough second-round draw against either Boston College (which upset the UNC team that rolled over the Spartans earlier in the season), or Pac-10 tournament champs Southern Cal.
The most common first-round upsets have historically come in the 5-12 matchups. Utah-Arizona, Purdue-Northern Iowa, Florida State-Wisconsin, and Illinois-Western Kentucky represent those games this year. If you look at pure talent among all those teams, 12-seed Arizona might actually be at the top of the list. Although U of A underachieved all season, they could knock a good Utah team out in the first round.
Bagriansky can be reached at jbagriansky@scoreatl.com.
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