NCAA Tournament: Cassius Winston, Ty Jerome among players to watch in Final Four

The Final Four of the 2019 NCAA Tournament features plenty of talent. Who are the players to look for this weekend?

With only one weekend left in the college basketball season, four teams still stand. Those are Auburn, Michigan State, Texas Tech, and lastly Virginia. Each of those teams has had a very different path to the Final Four. Virginia had to overcome adversity in the first round against Gardner-Webb in a 1-16 matchup. Gardner actually led by 16 at one point in the first half.

Auburn started off shaky and very well could have lost to New Mexico State had a 78% free throw shooter in Terrell Brown not missed twice. Then they beat Kansas, North Carolina, and Kentucky en route to the Final Four. Michigan State looked very mediocre in the first round against Bradley, but after that is when Cassius Winston took over and Kenny Goins drilled a three to send Duke packing. The most dominant team, however, was Texas Tech as they won their first three rounds by a margin of 15, 20, and 19 respectively.

There is obviously a stud on each team with Cassius Winston for Michigan State, Jared Harper for Auburn, Jarrett Culver for Texas Tech, and DeAndre Hunter for Virginia, but who are the guys that will step up when their team needs them most.

For Michigan State, I would watch Xavier Tillman. In the tournament, he is averaging 15.2 PPG and 8.5 RPG filling in for an injured Nick Ward. I am not sure who Texas Tech will put on him, but he could create a matchup nightmare for most bigs. The other half of that game has a team that I thought coming into this season might fall off with having lost Zhaire Smith and Zach Smith, but they actually went farther. Davide Moretti is my player to watch as he will split time handling the ball with Culver and Mooney. Moretti can hit the three very consistently at 46%, and he can also play very solid defense, as he very well might draw either Winston or McQuaid from Michigan State.

On the other side, you have Auburn and Virginia, for Auburn, I think it will come down to the play of Danjel Purifoy. He is the player taking the spot of Chuma Okeke, and in the first game, he played very well against a loaded front line for Kentucky. He may have only had 6 points and 7 rebounds, but he slowed down PJ Washington and Reid Travis.

Then for Virginia, Ty Jerome the maestro will have to not turn the ball over. Auburn will try and speed up the Cavaliers and force them into careless mistakes. Jerome only turns the ball over 1.7 times per game in just about 34 minutes a game. If he can keep possession for the Cavs and just slow down Jared Harper a little bit on defense this game could get ugly very quickly.

All in all, I think this is going to be a great weekend, as there are teams that are playing one another that play very contrasting styles. Auburn quick and shoot the three vs Virginia a team that focuses on slowing the game down and their tremendous defense. The Michigan State a team with great guards and not a lot of depth vs Texas Tech who like Virginia will focus on defense but will rotate players quite frequently.