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Forget about Villanova’s impressive run to The Motor City—featuring a ‘why the heck did people pick this team to go to Detroit’ (when they were trailing American by double digits) and ‘this Scottie Reynolds is stinking up the joint’ comments from yours truly—Michigan State takes the cake here. Me hailing from Michigan, what a surprise, huh? Well, Tom Izzo and Co. deserve it. MSU is far from dominant, but they’re a fun team. Fun to watch interact with each other, fun to see plead with an irate Izzo, fun to watch on a fast break, fun to analyze which big man (there’s 5) Izzo will usher into the game, and extremely fun to witness pound a ‘powerful’ Big East team into the ground.  Jump on the MSU bandwagon now national media, yeah, own up.

Spartan Fever (Image:Newscom)

Player Most Instrumental To Team’s Success

Villanova- One guy has been playing way over his head. Senior guard/forward Dwayne Anderson. He’s scoring and rebounding over his season average. He does not want to play his last collegiate game.  Give me more Dwayne says.

North Carolina- Tywon Lawson is a top 5, top 10 draft pick?  Probably working himself into the former based on this three game tear where he’s shooting above 50% from inside and outside the long line, feeding and turning over the rock at a 10/1 ratio, and out potty mouthing Ari Gold. If I didn’t know any better I’d say Ty is healthy.

Connecticut- Lanky 6′9 Stanley Robinson sans the opening round game when he scored 24, has just been pretty good, nothing legendary, but he hasn’t needed to be. When Jerome Dyson went down with season ending injury, UConn needed someone to step up, play more minutes and be a threat to consistently score in double figures, and Craig Austrie sure wasn’t going to be that guy. Stanley Robinson is that X-factor guy.

Michigan State- The 6′10 Bosnian senior Goran Suton has been PUURRRE! the last two games, totaling 39 points (5-10 from deep), 19 rebounds, and 6 steals. Don’t know if he’ll be able to be so PUURRRE! against Mr. Thabeet, but if he is, MSU will be playing on Monday for the title.

Prediction For The Final Four

Ford Field will be a Green and White madplace for the Saturday 6:07 tip v. UConn and then for the Monday rematch with UNC.

Prepare.

Post from: EveryJoe

Round 3 & 4 Wrap

Stephen Curry has a lot to do with that.

Davidson’s magnificent run in last year’s NCAA tourney captivated basketball fans from all around the country, as wins against Gonzaga, Georgetown and Wisconsin were nothing short of dramatic and inspiring. Whether it was Curry’s dazzling finishes at the hoop or his effortless 3 point bombs from deep, the 15 year old looking Wildcat guard never ceased to awe NCAA tourney crowds. His teammates, while not flashy or spectacularly skilled, were the ultimate partners in crime.

Big shot after big shot—it never got old.

Losing to the eventual champs by two points was quite a disappointment, but it further proved that Davidson could compete with anybody in college basketball.

Repeating last year’s heroics will be a much more difficult task for this 08/09 squad. Not only did point guard Jason Richards graduate—the leading assist man in all of DI basketball and the 2nd leading scorer on the team—but the Wildcat’s 3rd and 4th leading scorers also graduated. That leaves the Wildcats a little thin, not to mention much more dependent on the smooth shooting Curry (25.9 ppg) to score and to facilitate the offense. Thus Davidson expects Curry to take over the point guard duties next year, but the team’s success could ultimately hinge upon the improvements of returning role players like forward Andrew Lovedale (6.8 ppg), guard Bryant Barr (5.2 ppg), guard William Archambault (5.0 ppg) and guard Max Paulhus Gosselin (34 games started).

Another key factor to Davidson’s success will be 6’10 Nigerian freshman Frank Ben-Eze, who signed with Davidson just last month.

The 230lb center garnered interest from Marquette, West Virginia and even UCLA.

Davidson is quite fortunate that a player with such size and potential decided to sign with them.

Hopefully Frank can give them a decent presence down low to diversify the mostly perimeter oriented attack of the Wildcats.

If Davidson is to even come close to matching last year’s run, Curry must continue to put up 25+ ppg and average a good 5 assists or so.

I really see Lovedale having a break out senior year. He should probably play around 32-35 minutes/gm and gather 7 boards or so too. He really came into his own during the tournament last year.

This may be the last year Davidson fans (all college fans really) get to enjoy Stephen Curry at the collegiate level. Another outstanding season could leave him nothing else to do other than enter the NBA draft.

We’ll be watching.

Post from: EveryJoe

Can Davidson make another tourney run?