Where will Andrew Wiggins Play?

By Maxime Desplan, 2015

Source: BasketballElite/Flickr

Now that the college basketball season has ended, we can now turn our attention to the 2013-2014 season. One of the biggest storylines to follow during this upcoming spring and summer will be Andrew Wiggins, the #1 player in high school basketball, who has yet to commit to a school. Although Wiggins has not set a date for his decision, one thing is sure: he will choose between four of the best college programs: Kentucky, Florida State, North Carolina and Kansas. Whichever school lands him, huge expectations will surround the team.

Andrew Wiggins is projected as the #1 pick for the 2014 NBA Draft and is considered to be the best NBA prospect since Lebron James came out of high school in 2003. Wiggins is a Canadian 6-foot-7 small forward who just finished his high school basketball season at Huntington Prep in West Virginia, averaging 24.2 points and 8.2 rebounds per game. He is an athletic wing who has a unique ability to take the ball to the basket and score points in the paint over taller defenders. Wiggins also has a great length and jumping ability. Combined with his non-stop motor, this makes him one of the top rebounders in the Class of 2013, which is a recruiting class filled with elite big men and athletic wing players. His elite athleticism makes Wiggins a shutdown defender that can guard almost any player on the floor except for the center. Wiggins has tremendous hype surrounding him, with very good reason, but there are also some areas in his game that need to be improved. He must improve his perimeter shooting and passing ability before he arrives on campus, but with his tremendous work ethic, I am sure that those areas of his game will greatly improve before he plays his first college game. One of the things that I notice every time I watch him play is his competitiveness. Last week, during the McDonalds All American Game (an all star game for the 24 best high school seniors), Wiggins played every possession with passion and intensity. He took the challenge to match-up against Jabari Parker, the Duke commit who is the #2 ranked player in the Class of 2013. He played extremely well against Parker, taking the ball to the hoop almost every time and he did not settle for jump shots. He also had great success guarding Parker on defense. Playing with that competitiveness and intensity during an all star game really shows how special Wiggins is.

Originally part of the Class of 2014, Wiggins decided to re-classify to the Class of 2013 and arrive on campus for the 2013-2014 season. His late reclassification rushed his recruiting process, but Kentucky and Florida State immediately made Wiggins their number one priority. Kansas and North Carolina on the other hand, arrived later in his recruitment but both received official visits from Wiggins during this past season. These four schools have done everything they possibly could to bring Wiggins to their campus; they now wait for Wiggins to make his decision. Here are some facts about each of the schools, and why Wiggins might commit to that university:

The Madness Is Almost Over!

Source: Jamie Green/The Wichita Eagle

By Maxime Desplan, 2015

The final weekend of the college basketball season is finally here. The NCAA Tournament has been tremendous, even if many of the teams in the competition have struggled to score points. Four teams remain and have arrived in Atlanta to play in the Final Four, knowing that they are two wins away from winning a National Championship. The four remaining teams are all very talented but out of the 8 million brackets on the ESPN Tournament Challenge, less than 2 thousand people predicted that these four teams would make it to Atlanta, and I was definitely was not one of those people. The only team, I correctly predicted in the Final Four was Louisville. Kansas, OhioState and Miami were my other picks.  The Final Four will be played on Saturday night: the first game is WichitaState vs. Louisville and the second game is Michigan vs. Syracuse.  Each of the four teams have had very successful seasons, but all have had bumps in the road and have had many interesting stories associated with them. Here is a summary of each of their seasons.

Source: David Finch/davidfinch.com

#1 Seed Louisville Cardinals:

The preseason #1 team in the nation had a tremendous season going 29-5 while winning a share of the Big East Title and their second straight Big East Tournament in Madison Square Garden. With a mixture of a senior backcourt with Peyton Siva and Russ Smith and a young frontcourt of Chase Behanan and Gorgui Dieng, Louisville started its season, winning sixteen out of their first seventeen games (only loss was to Duke in the Bahamas) and then in late Janaury, they went on an unexpected three game losing streak. During their three game losing streak, the Cardinals were almost ranked out of the top 25.

Once their losing streak ended, Louisville quietly won ten of eleven games and moved back into the Top-10 and played extremely well in the Big East Tournament, giving them huge momentum before the NCAA tournament began. Ranked as the #1 in the Midwest region, Louisville handily beat North Carolina A&T, Colorado, and Oregon in the first three rounds of the tournament setting up a match up against Duke in the Elite 8 with the chance of going to the Final Four for the second consecutive season. Lead by their senior guards Peyton Siva and Russ Smith, Louisville beat Duke by twenty two points, advancing to the Final Four. Unfortunately, Louisville suffered the horrific injury to Kevin Ware, but it seems that the Cardinals are using this injury as motivation to win the tournament for their injured teammate. Most people including myself believe that Louisville is the favorite to win the next two games and keep the National Championship trophy in the state of Kentucky for the second consecutive year. 

Who Can Make the Final Four in Atlanta?

Source: gadome.com

By Maxime Desplan, 2015

We are less than one week away from the start of March Madness, and with each day that passes, a projected No.1 seed loses, changing the whole landscape of the tournament. In a year where it seems that every week, there is a new team ranked #1, there will certainly be plenty of upsets coming in March. Each team that is considered a “contender” has a specific flaw and hopes that the team that they are playing against doesn’t find it. This upcoming NCAA tournament is wide open and is expected to be one of the best NCAA tournaments we have seen in recent years.

Here are some of the teams that, I believe, are capable of making it to the Final Four:

 

Source: Indiana Public Media/Flickr

Indiana Hoosiers:

Most experts believe that Indiana has the best chance to win the national championship this year. The Hoosiers were ranked #1 for the ten weeks during the regular season and have a roster that is loaded with future NBA talent. They have two players who were in contention for the Big Ten Player of the Year with junior Victor Oladipo and sophomore Cody Zeller. Both players are expected to be first round draft picks in the upcoming NBA Draft. Head Coach Tom Crean’s team is ten men deep and has six players who can score twenty points on any given night. There aren’t many flaws in Indiana’s high tempo offense, but at times, during the season, they have struggled to score points when they are in a half court set. However, Indiana has a couple of flaws on the defensive side of the ball that could give the Hoosiers some serious problems in March. In the past two weeks, those defensive flaws were obvious when the Hoosiers lost to Ohio State at home and to Wisconsin in the Big Ten tournament. Indiana’s starting guards Jordan Hulls and Yogi Ferrell have struggled to stop the penetration of the opposing guards and they had zero help behind them. My biggest issue with Indiana’s team is their frontcourt defense. Cody Zeller and Christian Watford are “soft” players that do not have enough toughness and couldn’t compete with Ohio State’s centers Evan Ravanel and Amir Williams, who absolutely dominated them in the paint. At times, both Zeller and Watford seemed lost and physically inferior to their opponents. In order for the Hoosiers to make it to Atlanta, their frontcourt players must play physical defense and focus more on their defense rather than their offensive game. Can Zeller and Watford do that in March? We will have to see.

Getting to Know the Top Freshmen in College Basketball

By Maxime Desplan, 2015

Source: si.com

1. Ben McLemore-Kansas University, Shooting Guard

Ben McLemore arrived in Lawrence, Kansas in the summer of 2012, but he was ruled a partial qualifier by the NCAA and was not allowed to play games for Kansas, but was only able to practice. Originally from the Class of 2012, McLemore was ranked #49 in the ESPN 100 coming out high school. A 6-foot-5 shooting guard from St. Louis, Missouri, McLemore was known in high school for being a very athletic wing player, he also played AAU alongside Bradley Beal, who is now in the NBA playing for the Washington Wizards. The redshirt freshmen wisely used his year off to improve his overall game and he is now considered to be a Top-5 pick in the upcoming NBA draft. He is currently leading the Jayhawks in scoring at 15.9 points per game and is shooting 88% from the free-throw line.  On February 11^th, Kansas was on a three game losing streak and the Jayhawks were playing a huge home game against their biggest rival Kansas State. McLemore put on an absolute show and single handedly carried the Jayhawks to a victory. He scored 30 points on 9-13 shooting including six three-pointers. He has been very consistent in Big 12 Conference play, scoring double-digits in thirteen out of the fifteen games Kansas has played so far. Because of McLemore, Kansas is in great shape to win yet another Big 12 regular season championship and will most likely get a Top-2 seed in the NCAA Tournament. In order for Kansas to make a deep run in the tournament, Kansas will need to rely on McLemore’s scoring. At times, during the season, McLemore has been a little passive on the offensive end and that has caused for Kansas to struggle on the offensive end of the floor. If McLemore is aggressive offensively and point guard Elijah Johnson is able to make shots, Kansas can make a deep run in tournament and make it to the Final Four in Atlanta.

Can the Defending Champions make it to March Madness?

Source: ncaa.com

By Maxime Desplan, 2015

We are only one month away from Selection Sunday and there is one huge question looming in the state of Kentucky: Will Kentucky make the NCAA tournament? The defending champions are currently on the bubble and seem to be losing serious momentum after having a horrendous week. This past week was by far the worst of John Calipari’s career as Head Coach of the Wildcats. Not only did they lose two games to their SEC rivals Florida and Tennessee by an average of 23.5 points per game, but more importantly, they lost their best player, the freshmen sensation Nerlens Noel, due to an injury (an ACL tear in his left knee).  Noel, considered by many experts to be the #1 pick in the 2013 NBA Draft, was starting to play his best basketball of the season. Now that Nerlens Noel’s season is over, the young Wildcats must regroup quickly.

One player in particular who must improve his game is 6’10” freshmen Willie Cauley-Stein. A top-40 recruit from Kansas, Cauley-Stein has shown promises at times this season but, like most of his freshmen teammates, he has struggled to find consistency on both ends of the floor.  Kentucky does not need Cauley-Stein to score many points rather they need him to be a critical shot blocker and to help control the painted area. Before his injury, Nerlens Noel was leading the nation in blocks, making up for the mistakes made on the perimeter by their guards.