IAD 2008-2009 COLLEGE BASKETBALL PREVIEW DAY THREE
BEST OF THE MAJORS PART 2: "ACC/A-10/Pac-10/SEC"
There is a lot to be said for North Carolina, not only in the ACC, but nationally as well. More often than not, the Tar Heels are considered the favorite to walk out of 2009 with a National Title. Sadly, that can almost be said every year of Tyler Hansbrough's tenure at UNC. And no, its not just the Tar Heel hater in me that expects them to fail (ok, that's a part of it). Everyone from Chapel Hill to Durham (and even places not on Tobacco Road) need to face the real facts that UNC are not closers. Hansbrough, coach Roy Williams, Ty Lawson and company are all more pretender than champion. UNC will be good, but also beatable in the clutch.
And even as a hardcore Blue Devil fan, I can't put all my objective (ha) professional faith in Coach K and company. Honestly they have a lot to prove and their two main weaknesses are glaring. The most notable is in the post where Brian Zoubek isn't exactly a stud and Kyle Singler isn't most efficient. Hopefully Miles Plumlee will alleviate this issue some. Also, they froze in the clutch. Their tournament time wouldn't have been as good as it was had it not been for Gerald Henderson while the rest of the team folded like laundry (and that's putting it nicely).
Behind them, 3 through 10 in the ACC is pretty even with Miami on the verge of their best ACC season to date.
Xavier should run away in the Atlantic 10, even though Dayton, St. Joe's, Temple and Charlotte will all mae noise in their own ways. The Musketeers return just under 30 points in CJ Anderson, Derrick Brown and BJ Raymond alone. Tack on two 6'8'' transfers and a seven-foot freshman and this team should blow them all away.
I am not exactly sure how to feel about the Pac-10 just yet. It's obvious that UCLA will take the crown out there yet again. They lost three pretty significant players, but return three more of equal calibar. Darren Collison in the best player in the conference, hands down, and the people around him will make his job easier. Even their freshman class is stacked with five players from the Top 50. Arizona has a decent team, led by Chase Budinger, but they have had plenty of offseason perils with the retirement of coach Lute Olsen and the loss of Brandon Jennings to international play. I question the Wildcat focus at this point. USC has plenty of talent to work with even if OJ Mayo is gone, but I still think that UCLA is far and away in a league of their own. The problem with this conference is it is much more of an individual talent team outside of UCLA, much like the ACC is outside of Duke and Carolina.
In the SEC, things look pretty different everywhere you look. Each team lost someone quite important to their nucleus in the offseason and it will be interesting to see who bounces back quickest. Tennessee has a solid core still and should be the team to beat, but I think that Billy Donovan's Florida Gators will return to the promised land sooner than later. They struggled badly after the loss of Joakim Noah and company, but Nick Calathes played so strong last year and should put the Gators back at the top of at least the SEC East and back into the NCAA's.
Individually, I am loving Dionte Christmas at Temple. Even with a down year for the Atlantic 10, this guy is sensational and will be one of the nation's top individual players. Tyrese Rice fits into that same category and is explosive as an individual but saddled with an at-best sub par team in Boston College. Though I'm not liking them as much, you can go ahead and throw Chris Warren from Ole Miss and Devan Downey of South Carolina in that same 'good player, mediocre team' catagory as the season begins.
AD Vassallo at Virginia Tech and AJ Ogilvy at Vanderbilt will be make or break players for their schools. Ogilvy, just a sophomore, will be a First Team player in the SEC and may even contend for conference player of the year honors. Also, watch Taj Gibson at USC to see if he can pick up the slack of the departed OJ Mayo. The pressure is on Gibson to lead a still talented Trojan team that also has a lot of new faces. Also under coach Tim Floyd, keep an eye out for Romeo Miller (son of rapper/ex-short term NBA player Percy "Master P" Miller). I don't expect him to do much at all, but it will still be interesting to watch him on the court.
ALL-MAJOR (ACC, A-10, PAC-10, SEC) CONFERENCE PLAYERS TO WATCH
Tyler Hansbrough (North Carolina) - Player of the Year
Kyle Singler (Duke)
Darren Collison (UCLA)
Dionte Christmas (Temple)
James Harden (Arizona State)
AJ Ogilvy (Vanderbilt)
OTHER MAJOR (ACC, A-10, PAC-10, SEC) PLAYERS TO WATCH
Gerald Henderson (Duke)
Tyrese Rice (Boston College)
Jack McClinton (Miami)
Ty Lawson (UNC)
AD Vassallo (Virginia Tech)
Jeff Teague (Wake Forest)
Chase Budinger (Arizona)
Josh Shipp (UCLA)
Taj Gibson (USC)
Jon Brockman (Washington)
Walter Hodge (Florida)
Jai Lucas (Florida)
Patrick Patterson (Kentucky)
Marcus Thornton (LSU)
Chris Warren (Ole Miss)
Devan Downey (South Carolina)
IAD CONFERENCE CHAMPION PREDICTIONS (if different than regular season winner, automatic bid recipient will follow in bold)
ACC: Duke - North Carolina (NCAA Bid)
A-10: Xavier
PAC-10: UCLA
SEC: Tennessee (East), LSU (West) - Tenneessee (NCAA Bid)
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