Recruiting Wire Vol. 5

Recruiting Wire- The end of the world
What is there to say when 70% of the Top 10 teams lose in a week. It all started last Tuesday when the Mountaineers beat the #2 Kansas Jayhawks. Upsets in college sports, especially basketball because of how exciting the upset itself is. The good thing about upsets is how the game expands and you see more than just the top teams in the country. Tennessee and Georgia Tech. have become legitimate dark horses if they make the tournament to bust some brackets. Another team that showed a ton of heart is the University of Virginia. The Cavilers have been a good team for the past 2 years and for everyone sleeping on them—welcome back Virginia. Now getting into the “brand new” Top 25:
1.      Gonzaga
2.      Baylor
3.      Kansas
4.      Villanova
5.      Arizona
6.      Louisville
7.      West Virginia
8.      Kentucky
9.      Virginia
10.  Wisconsin
11.  UCLA
12.  North Carolina
13.  Oregon
14.  Cincinnati
15.  Florida State
16.  Butler
17.  Maryland
18.  St. Mary’s
19.  South Carolina
20.  Norte Dame
21.  Duke
22.  Creighton  
23.  Purdue
24.  Florida
25.  Northwestern
This is an interesting Top with Louisville at #6 is an interesting, as is Maryland at #17, and let’s welcome a fellow Big 10 team into the Top 25 in Northwestern at #25. With the shack up in the Top 25, my Top 10 looks different with some upsets this past week:
1.      Gonzaga
2.      Kansas
3.      Arizona
4.      West Virginia
5.      Villanova
6.      UCLA
7.      Kentucky
8.      Oregon
9.      Virginia
10.  Maryland
Nothing really changes with the teams that I love because of what happened this week. I could have called the West Virginia win over Kansas, but the Jayhawks redeemed themselves with the win over Kentucky. Maryland and Virginia impressed me a ton this week so they enter my Top 10 this week. Even with the loss, Arizona to me, is still an extremely dangerous team and shouldn’t be taken lightly. However, the only good thing for teams inside the Top 10 is that 70% of teams inside the Top 10 lost, so you don’t really lose that much ground.

Getting into the Unappreciated Performer of the Week. This happened very early on last week in the UCLA loss on Wednesday night. This weeks’ recipient is USC’s guard Shaqquan Aaron who had 23 points off the bench, also grabbing 4 boards, while being on fire from the field shooting 50% (6-12), with 4 of those 12 from deep. USC just had the game of the season and will have a good time as a 13 or 14 seed in the tournament. A disclaimer here, I wouldn’t feel right not touching on a Top 5 matchup in Kansas and Kentucky. My Performance of the Week is Kansas guard Frank Mason III. Mason in 37 minutes shot 50% from the field (9-18), had 21 points 4 assists, 3 rebounds, and 2 steals—something I’d like to call an all-around college game. Mason was everywhere in a good win for the Jayhawks.

Finally, looking ahead for this week, let’s just sit back and see what happens. It starts tonight with a tough game for #17 Maryland going to Ohio State on ESPN at 7PM. Wednesday night #15 Florida State goes to Miami and Virginia Tech goes to #9 Virginia—so upset might be the word of Wednesday. Jumping ahead to Saturday where there are 2 games that really jump off the page. The 1st game is #5 Arizona traveling Eugene to play #13 Oregon on ESPN at 4PM EST. the 2nd is #20 Norte Dame going to #12 North Carolina for an interesting game. Also if you want to watch the #1 team in the country Gonzaga, they are playing Santa Clara at 10PM EST on ESPN 2. Moving into the work week, #6 Louisville travels to #9 Virginia on ESPN at 7PM to finish off the week. Hopefully I will be talking about the Louisville-Virginia next week. As the Recruiting class finishes up for the early graduates make sure you keep your eyes peeled.
Sources:(espn.com, ncaa.com)

Don’t forget to like, comment, subscribe, and share on your way out!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2024 MLB Preview

  Opening Day is about 24 hours away and the Shohei Ohtani gambling story has stole all the headlines and fleeting moments of baseball conversation over the past few days, many have now forgotten about the exciting marathon ahead of us! Even with the ever-evolving Ohtani story clouding the beginning of the Los Angeles Dodgers season, that doesn’t change the fact that L.A. is still the team to beat in baseball. The Dodgers have put their chips at the center of the table, no pun intended, for 2024 to show they can raise another World Series trophy after sending upwards of a billion dollars in free agency. In division however, the surprise Arizona Diamondbacks are capitalizing on their newfound championship window with a fantastic offseason that will have them in the mix to get back to a second straight fall classic. The San Diego Padres are done shopping for superstars, sort of, following a massively disappointing season that saw them move on from one of the games generational talent...
Read more

Dan Hurley Saved College Basketball

When you think of Men’s College Basketball, the names of Wooden, Dean, Krzyzewski, Williams, Thompson, and Calipari shoot to mind right away. All the memories of the great teams from UCLA, Duke, North Carolina, Kentucky, the Big East, UNLV, and even the Fab Five start to rush back. Nostalgia of a time when the sport meant something different. For all those longing for the days when great teams didn’t dissipate into the transfer portal after one disappointing year—Dan Hurley and the Connecticut Huskies are here to save the day! UConn has done something that only seven other programs have done in the history of college basketball, repeat as champions. Forget all the talk about “best team of all-time,” even though if you look at point differential (like it truly matters), this UConn team is the best team to ever play in the NCAA Tournament. This team means much more to the game of college basketball than that. Coach Hurley has given college basketball what it has been missing since the in...
Read more

Last Year the Season was one game long, it's different this year

  It took 363 days, but Jets fans finally got the debut from Aaron Rodgers they waited for. This time around that debut ended in a blowout loss on the road to the San Francisco 49’ers. Last year the Jets won the battle but lost the war following their overtime walk-off win against the Buffalo Bills. This year, the Jets hope they lost the battle but because they have Rodgers they will win the war.   Of all the ways the game could have gone last night, having the Jets defense get thoroughly dominated on the ground by a third year running back, Jordan Mason, who wasn’t a household name until last night, wasn’t on the bingo card. The trademark for Robert Saleh has been his defense. That’s what got him hired from San Francisco. The defense is what Jet fans have pointed to as a reason for optimism heading into this year with Rodgers. The defense was finally supposed to get the complimentary football they have been dying for since Robert Saleh walked in the doors at Florham Park...
Read more