Heavy rains dismantling historic cities and explosive dunks by Georgia Tech’s Ismail Muhammed, means college basketball is in the weather. From Diaper Dandies and all the way to All-Americans, this is a exciting 2004-2005 season for all basketball fans. Coaches screaming, whistles blowing, fans cheering. Nothing gets better than this. Junior Rashaad McCants is blowing by defenders with crossovers and step backs to maintain his 20.3 points per game, which is his season average. McCants is leading North Carolina towards an Atlantic Coast Conference title, and leading them to a National Championship. The blue-footed Tar Heels were embarrassed by a well disciplined Santa Clara team. However the Tar Heels have been crucifying their opponents by lighting up the scoreboard. They have won six straight and are showing no signs of slowing down.
Experts have North Carolina winning the national title, even though that seems unlikely that they would pick a team prone to inconsistency to have all the glory.
Roy Williams, the head coach of North Carolina is the godfather of basketball. He knows how to win, and is a fantastic coach for these young players. The Problem is…North Carolina is too talented for their own good.
Underrated Georgia Tech has the best all-around squad, and knows how to win. The Yellow Jackets made it to the final stage of their historic season to run into a huge road block against a juggernaut Connecticut Huskies team. Georgia Tech came up short in that match, but have recently been building on their success from a year ago.
All-American Jarret Jack is running the point guard position with tremendous fashion. The great thing about the unselfish Jack is that his teammates come first. His ego is small and you can say the same for his fellow teammates. Publicity doesn’t matter. Predictions and rankings don’t matter. Nothing frustrates this young team. They do their job and leave it at that. They’ve given sportswriters an early Christmas present with their brutal thrashings of opponents.
March Madness is a long way away, but seems closer then it really is with all the outstanding match-ups so far. Fifth ranked Oklahoma State gave the Syracuse Orangemen a shellacking in the Coaches Versus Cancer tournament, earlier this season. Oklahoma State won decisively 74-60.
Big hype games featuring Wake Forest who was ranked number one in earlier pools, faced off against a tough Illinois team. The “Fighting Illini”, toyed with Wake Forest, and put the game away long before halftime.
The great thing about college basketball is you never know what’s going to happen next. Rankings don’t have any significance until March when the brackets are set.