Recruiting Wire Vol. 8

Recruiting Wire- A change at #1, but it might not matter
The impossible has happened… well sort of. The Gonzaga Bulldogs have lost a game. Gonzaga fell on Saturday to BYU in a 79-71 home loss. The perfect season has come to an end, and in a way this might be good for the overall team morality going into the tournament. The Bulldogs finally had that game that they didn’t all have it and were sluggish. This is a snap back to reality for Gonzaga and is an excellent late season teaching point for the team, showing them that they aren’t bullet proof. Getting into the Top 25, it will look different going into Championship play thanks to a few upsets yesterday.
1.      Kansas
2.      Villanova
3.      UCLA
4.      Gonzaga
5.      North Carolina
6.      Oregon
7.      Arizona
8.      Louisville
9.      Kentucky
10.  West Virginia
11.  Baylor
12.  Florida
13.  Butler
14.  SMU
15.  Florida State
16.  Perdue
17.  Duke
18.  Cincinnati
19.  Norte Dame
20.  St. Mary’s
21.  Wichita State
22.  Wisconsin
23.  Virginia
24.  Iowa State
25.  Miami
With the upset of Gonzaga, the play of UCLA and Kansas the bidding for the Number One seeds in the tournament are getting harder and harder to grab. What I said about Virginia last week was completely wrong, along with the fact that I said that last week was my last rankings of the regular season. This week is the final week of the regular season before Conference Championship play, so here that goes:
1.      Kansas
2.      Gonzaga
3.      Villanova
4.      UCLA
5.      Louisville
6.      Arizona
7.      Florida
8.      Oregon
9.      West Virginia
10.  Cincinnati
Rounding out the season, there will always be late seasons upsets, and the last two weeks you truly find out who really can play and who can’t. The “bubble” teams show you that they deserve to make it, and the pretenders get to settle for the NIT.

The Underappreciated Performance of the Week is a Cinderella Story and a form of an apology to the Virginia Cavilers. In their 53-43 home upset against the Tarheels, the Caviler Freshman guard Kyle Guy, who scored a game high 17 points in 32 minutes. Guy hasn’t been a crucial part to what Virginia has been doing all season, being that he didn’t score the last time they played North Carolina and only had 2 minutes in a loss to Miami last Monday. Guy was 5-7 from 3-point land to help Virginia past #5 North Carolina. Virginia has had an up and down season, but can possibly catch fire and make some noise in the tournament. This team won’t be in the Sweet 16 but it could knock off a couple of teams and have a decent tournament. This is a young team as well, so the current team has time to grow as a program. My Performance of the Week goes to
Kentucky Wildcat Freshman guard Malik Monk. Monk who has been a high volume shooter for the Wildcats, shooting 42% from deep has improved his draft stock to a possible lottery selection. Monk is no stranger to scoring over 30 points, reaching that mark now for the 4th time this season. In Kentucky’s 76-66 home win against then #13 Florida, Monk scored a game high 33 points. Monk went 5-7 from 3 and 10-11 from the charity strip along with 5 assists. Monk will be the key to what Kentucky does in the tournament, and he will also have to play at a level like the performance he produced on Saturday if he wants to keep his high chances of going in the lottery this coming June.

Looking into the final week of the regular season, there are a few diaper dandies’. Starting tonight at 7PM EST on ESPN, #15 Florida State travels to Cameron Indoor to play #17 Duke. It is Senior night in Cameron Indoor, so the Cameron Crazies will be interesting. After that the as for mentioned Malik Monk and #9 Kentucky host Vanderbilt at 9 on ESPN. Then, you have to wait until Friday for another good game. At 7PM on ESPN 2 #24 Iowa State goes to #10 West Virginia for Senior night. And for the final Saturday of the regular season, do you get #23 Virginia hosting Pittsburgh, Ohio State hosting Indiana on ESPN, #19 Norte Dame going to #8 Louisville at 2PM EST on CBS, or #1 Kansas going on the road to Oklahoma State at 4 on ESPN, but you get the rematch of #17 Duke and #5 North Carolina. What a better game to end the final Saturday, but with March Madness approaching quickly (it is the last day of February after all), the recruiting wire is just getting started.
Sources:(espn.com)

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