Halloween has past, not-so-secret scrimmages have taken place the past few weeks, and every player has either lost or gained 15-20 pounds this offseason, which all means one thing…NCAA basketball is coming.
Inspired by ESPN’s Zach Lowe, I wanted to take a look at the teams I’m most excited to watch this season (this is the third annual installment of this column). There is no universal opinion on what makes a basketball team fun. Some people enjoy watching Virginia hold opponents to 20 points in a half.
I prefer up-tempo, modern offenses, with elite guard play, and generally exciting players. The more threes and dunks the merrier. Here are some of the things I was looking for in these rankings:
Guard play: To me, guards make college basketball. Your team must have good guards to get me really interested.
Superstar/take-over potential: Does your team have a player that can take over games? Some player that makes you stop what you’re doing and tune into their game instantly?
Athletes: Points for up-tempo teams, and teams that frequently appear in the Sportscenter top 10.
Aesthetics: If you have a cool court or jersey design, I’m more intrigued.
Storylines. I want the game to matter, at least a little bit. If I hop on Twitter, can I find other people talking about this game? With that being said, here are the teams I’m most excited to watch, broken down into tiers.
Tier Seven: This team isn’t very good, but has an interesting piece
30. Detroit
Antoine Davis is back for his fifth season of eligibility as the active leader in career points at 2734, 933 of Pete Maravich’s all-time record. Asterisk it if you choose, but Davis has a real chance to crack the top ten this season. He’s got limitless range and a shifty handle and is a name worth monitoring.
29. Eastern Michigan
The Emoni Bates saga has hit the MAC. From the cover of Sports Illustrated to mid-major basketball. I won’t sit here and act like I know anything else about this team, but it’ll be fascinating to follow Bates this season. Will his talent and shooting ability lead to some high-scoring games? Can he play within a team mold? Or will his poor shot selection continue to hurt him? I don’t know, but I’m going to check it out.
28. Oral Roberts
Remember when the country’s leading scorer led a huge upset over No. 2 seed Ohio State in the NCAA Tournament, then took down Florida, and had Arkansas down to the wire to put a No. 15 seed in the Elite Eight of the ‘21 Tournament? Well after a kind of disappointing season to follow, Max Abmas is back. He loves to gun and his team does too, getting up threes at will. Abmas should be in line for some bonkers scoring nights again this season.