College Basketball Mayhem

OK so college basketball is ramping up to be a very good tournament this year. Blake Griffin and the Oklahoma Sooners are looking to easily make it to the elite 8 if not the final four, the man has 22 double doubles this year the most in the NCAA. Oklahoma averages 80 points a game and 39 rebounds per game with OU shooting almost .500 from the floor. This is one team i see making it very far in the tournament, the only thing is griffin needs to work on the free throw, that is one weakness he has and other teams go after that weakness late in the game, basically because there is a 50/50 chance he will or wont make it.

Another team is the UCONN Huskies, playing just great basketball, i can almost guarantee they will be in the elite 8, and the final four. Hasheem Thabeet is my favorite center in college right now, he is a beastly man, averages 13 points a game and over 10 rebounds a game, with limited turnovers, can make some big plays and can at times shoot a 10 or 15 footer every once in a while. What i like about UCONN is that they are very close in numbers to Oklahoma and they play in the Big East. Simply put right now the Big East has better basketball schools than the Big 12 does, that might hurt Oklahoma a little in the tournament, but personally i don't see it hurting them at all.

Now to a team i would put money on to be in the national championship game, The North Carolina Tar Heels. All of the starters led by Tyler Hansbrough,they all have over 11 points averaged per game. while the starting 5 don't have very many big rebound guys, they have a deep bench that can rebound and gives them 42 rebounds average per game. Tyler Hansbrough is a very very good forward. Averages over 21 points per game, gets his rebounds however their could be a little more, but Hansbrough is a shooting forward and not a real big rebounder like others in NCAA are. The man can drain a free-throw with a over .800 percent free throw shooter, so you don't want to foul him. North Carolina i almost betcha will be in the final four.

Now a couple teams to watch, Pittsburgh has a very solid offense and can score points off the bench, which gives a a starter or 2 a break to keep players fresh. Another is Illinois, they only score 65 points per game but they can make free throws late in the game no problem, that is the difference in some games. but there problem is they play in big 10, that could hurt them also in the tournament, because the big 10 is so bad this year. Another team is Missouri, they shoot very deep into there bench, i think like 9 guys on the team average over 5 points per game, that's not to bad. And they got some good free throw shooting guys on the team. last but not least in Duke, look i know they got blown out really bad by Clemson, and got beat by North Carolina, but the guys play good fundamental basketball, they pass it a couple three or 4 times per possession, and they make buckets. One thing that hurts them is they live and die by the 3-pointer, the team has attempted over 520 three pointers this year, that is a lot. Cant win pivotal games when you depend on the three pointer. If they stick to good passes(OH wait they don't have much of a big man, no wonder they depend so much on the three pointer, they got pretty much 4 guards on the floor at one time during the whole game)and they gotta get the ball inside to someone some how. But they gotta get away from all the three pointers.

There are some good basketball teams out there this year, i really think things are shaping up to be another super exciting month of march.