Hoops Analyst

I’ve been trying to get a handle on what wins the NCAA tournament and there seem to be 3 things that in recent years have been huge. The first is the team has to be one of the top teams in the country. Seriously. The 2^nd factor is the team needs to have some quality big men. They don’t have to be great, but they should at the very least be good. At least one of the big men and preferably more, should be players that will be drafted. The higher they will be drafted, the better. The third factor is that the team is a veteran team that has had the core together for at least two years and preferably three. This last one is something I’m adding to the mix this year. Of teams that won championships in the aughts, the only one that did it with freshmen leading them was Syracuse in 2003.

So I have these three things to look for now.

Another thing about this tournament is I think it is going to be a little crazier than it has in recent years with the upsets. This is because talent seems more evenly dispersed this year. Duke and Kansas stand above the rest of the group, but after that the next 25 teams or so are fairly close. The next 25 aren’t bad either. That means some big upsets are going to happen in rounds 2 and 3 once the weaker teams from the smaller conferences have been kicked to the curb and the teams that remain are all pretty equal. That has often been the case, but this year more so than ever.

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Something I’ve been wondering about with the 2010 draft is what affect the potential lockout and new CBA will have on the early entrants. If we go by the theory that players will enter the draft when it is to their financial benefit to do so, we could see quite a few early entrants in 2010. The reason is this is the final season that rookies will get contracts based on the current CBA. The group drafted in 2011 and beyond will likely be looking at less lucrative contracts than previous rookie classes. This reality and the possibility that any rookie entering the league through the 2011 draft could spend most or all of the season locked out and unpaid, could send a wave of prospects into the 2010 draft. In addition to the usual suspects, young players who normally would have returned for their soph seasons looking to star for a year, then go pro–like John Henson or Eric Bledsoe–might decide to make the jump a year early. But that’s just speculation.

The 2010 draft is shaping up as very top heavy. The top 4 players are all very good and very close in potential. Wall has been the consensus top guy all year, but I could see any one of the top 4 eventually emerging as the top guy. After that are a few sleepers and role players, but the depth of the past few drafts isn’t here. There won’t be many bargains found in round 2 this year. Another thing to know here is for many of these players there are only a few games remaining, so this is pretty much it for them. I’ll be doing deeper analysis on all of them who enter the draft, but for most it is unlikely their place will change much.

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