2015 NCAA Tournament Midwest Region: Top 5 Players

The Midwest region for the 2015 NCAA Tournament should basically be re-named to the Indiana region. Better yet, within roughly a 500-mile radius, you have Kentucky, Cincinnati, Purdue, West Virginia, Maryland, Valapariso, Butler, Notre Dame, and Indiana, or over half the bracket. The chances for rivalry games and intriguing match-ups are huge in this one.

The oddness of the location of the teams in the bracket aside, this region is also loaded with some great players, and most of them play for Kentucky. Wildcats aside, there are many names and players to keep an eye on. In accordance to our own Randy Sherman, who wrote about the best players in the West region, let’s look at the top five players to watch in the Midwest region.

(Note: I’m only including one Kentucky player. Otherwise they’d probably take the entire top five.)

Willie Cauley-Stein, Kentucky

Jerian Grant, Notre Dame

If you’re looking for someone with a Stephen Curry-like ability to carry a team through the tournament and into the Final Four, Grant is one of your guys. Fortunately for Grant and the Fighting Irish, he has a supporting cast that can help get him there, but that’s another story.

Grant is a dynamic player who can both get to the rim and dunk over and through someone or stay outside the arc and bury threes. Often times, you can make your own Sportscenter Top 10 off of ridiculous plays from Grant. He’s so good that I wouldn’t put it past him to single-handedly (or with a lot of help from his teammates) lead his team past Kentucky.

With or without a Kentucky win, Notre Dame is destined for a big tournament, and Grant is going to be the catalyst for the Fighting Irish.

Dezmine Wells, Maryland

You could easily put teammate Melo Trimble on this list, but for sake of variety, we’ll leave it with one player per team and choose Wells, who’s just as talented and playing possibly the best basketball of his season. Over the last 13 games, he’s averaging 17.4 points, 5.9 rebounds, and helped the Terrapins to a 10-3 finish, including a win over Wisconsin.

Wells is a match-up nightmare for teams, able to post-up and manhandle smaller guards while being able to take bigger forwards out to the perimeter. Unfortunately for him, and every other team in this region, they are eventually going to be paired up with Kentucky if they make a deep tournament run. We’re gonna take Kentucky in any of those situations.

Yogi Ferrell, Indiana

It’s not an understatement to call Ferrell one of the best point guards in the nation. He’s been the Hoosiers Mr. Do-It-All this year, tasked with leading the offense, scoring, setting up teammates, and often given one of the tougher defensive match-ups. The result was first-team All-Big Ten honors thanks to 16.1 points and 4.9 assists a game.

Ferrell’s time in the region may be short-lived, though. He’ll be tasked with playing arguably the best backcourt in the nation in Wichita State’s duo, which may be too much for Ferrell and the Hoosiers to handle. However, you can know that if the game is on the line, there will be no doubt which Hoosier will have the ball.

A.J. Hammons, Purdue

The Purdue Boilermakers’ late-season push to the tournament was largely done on the back of star center Hammons. His strong season earned him All-Big 10 second-team honors, as well as some votes for defensive player of the year. Those votes came due to his 2.9 blocks a game and a block percentage of 12.7% that has him fourth in the nation.

Much like their rivals Indiana, Purdue’s tournament will be short-lived thanks to their likely second-round match-up against Kentucky should the Boilermakers beat Cincinnati. If they do, Hammons may have a coming out party of sorts against the massive Wildcats, which could end up in him cashing it in this spring in the NBA Draft.

Honorable Mentions: Fred VanVleet, Wichita St., Ron Baker, Wichita State, Perry Ellis, Kansas,

Next: 2015 NCAA Tournament: 3 Bracket Busters in the South Region

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