NCAA Tournament Starting Soon

March 23, 2010  
Filed under News

On March 18, 32 teams will walk out onto the court and see fans waving their hands and the NCAA logo printed on the floor. For some it will be their final game, the last time to show what their team can do. For others, it will be one step closer to the national championship.

The NCAA tournament is striking every person in the nation with “March Madness.” The tournament is broken down into four different regions, Midwest, South, East and West. The teams will compete with their assigned region until the semi final game where the winners of the Midwest and East will face up and the winners of the West and South will play.  Selection Sunday, when the teams are selected to participate in the tournament, is not until March 14.

This year, the favorite teams to win the tournament include No. 1-ranked Kansas, Kentucky, Syracuse and perhaps Duke. These are the top four ranked teams in the country as of now. However, there are many other teams like Kansas State and Villanova who have been highly ranked this season that are expected to put up a fight in tournament play.

“I think Kansas will win. They have a strong offense and their defense is superb. They have also had great coaching for many years,” junior Dylan Sauer said.

The 2009-10 college basketball season was either rocky or great depending on the team. The Texas Longhorns started out strong, obliterating their opponents. For awhile, they were ranked as number one, but after the loss to Kansas State, they started slipping down out of the top 25. The University of North Carolina has also had a disappointing season. The Tar Heels are usually ranked up in the top ten. However, they became unranked at about mid season.

On the other side, the two rivals in Kansas have had fantastic seasons. KU has the strength and talent that the Jayhawks are expected to have. They have players like Sherron Collins who can toss in a three pointer here and there and Cole Aldrich who makes driving to the net near impossible for the opponents. Kansas State Wildcats received a ranking as high as No. 5 this year, which is one of the best rankings in school history. Their players, Jacob Pullen and Denis Clemente work together to penetrate from any spot on the court.

This 2010 NCAA basketball season has had some surprises of who is ranked and who is not. However, there are also teams that present no surprise to being the best. Sauer said that the tournament will be very tough this year. He said there are a lot of great offenses that will be hard on all of the teams. The brackets may look a little different than usual but the tournament will still be alive with tough competition.

(Information from ncaa.com)

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Kali Hinman

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