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)

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