March Madness: Why lack of Madness might be a good thing moving forward

Plenty of stars remain

The nature of the College Basketball landscape often dictates that the higher the profile of a program, the more likely they are to have the true College Hoops superstars making them scheduled programming.

The juxtaposition here is quite interesting I do admit.  As we inched closer to the NCAA tournament, I felt a bit down trodden when we lost Mike Daum, Chris Clemons and Justin Wright-Foreman from having their time on the national stage just one last time.  But I knew that this would be short lived as South Dakota State, Campbell and Hofstra likely wouldn’t have lasted long in the field anyway.

At this point, March Madness is partially exciting for the die-hard fans when players such as those listed above get their moment.

Voids left by them were appropriately taken by the likes of Ja Morant, Dylan Windler and Fletcher Magee.  While these three will likely dawn an NBA jersey at some point in their near futures, would you prefer Windler to Naz Reid and Tre Waters?  Magee to EJ Montgomery, Keldon Johnson and potentially PJ Washington?

I won’t ask if you’d prefer Ja Morant over Terrance Mann as there’s only one person who might surpass Ja on the must-watch list.

The point is this; when you look at  NBA mock Drafts, there are names that stick out.

Currently half of the projected first round picks according to Babcock Hoops will be playing in the Sweet 16: Zion Williamson (Duke), RJ Barrett (Duke), Rui Hachimura (Gonzaga), Cam Reddish (Duke), De’Andre Hunter (Virginia), Coby White (North Carolina), Nickeil Alexander-Walker (Virginia Tech), Keldon Johnson (Kentucky), Nassir Little (North Carolina), Cameron Johnson (North Carolina), Carsen Edwards (Purdue), PJ Washington (Kentucky), Naz Reid (LSU), and Ignas Brazdeikis (Michigan.)

To go one step further, they project six players from the current field to land in the second round.

That’s 35% of the projected draft class in this Sweet 16 field.

Not too shabby.