Friday, October 13, 2006

Midnight Madness is Here!!!!!

While most Gator fans may be focused on the plains of Western Georgia and Eastern Alabama this weekend, they should keep an eye out to the events back home in Gainesville. The Defending National Champion Florida Gators open up their title defense with Midnight Madness.

Not only do the Gators return the entire core of last year's title team, but they bring in a great freshman class. Keep an eye on two players this year: Al Horford, who could be the #1 pick of the 2007 NBA Draft and Tauren Green who has improved his ball handling and distribution over the offseason. The Gators have a very good shot of repeating, but I believe they will fall just short as the Tar Heels are absolutely loaded entering the season.

Here is my preseason top 5:

1- North Carolina
2- Florida
3- LSU
4- Kansas
5- UCLA

Any of the above 5 teams could win the national title. Keep an eye on Pittsburgh out of the Big East, and Ohio State out of the Big Ten also. They will be dangerous.

Florida State must make the NCAAs this season. FSU has made the big dance once in the past 14 seasons and has enough good players returning in addition to Auburn transfer Tony Douglas to make an impact this year in the ACC. It is very important for the FSU backcourt of Isaiah Swann, and Ralph Mims to take the pressure off of the all world Al Thornton. Mims and Swann are perhaps the most inconsistent backcourt pair in the nation.

Miami in my opinion will be better than people think. I saw the official ACC handbook picked them 10th in the league but Frank Haith now has his type of players in the program that will play his half court style with tough in your face defense. I expect Ray Hicks, a junior from Longview, Texas to continue his improvement inside and be the Canes key player. The other key for Miami will be Jack McClinton, a guard who transferred from Siena. McClinton is a natural shooter who also is a tough man to man defender. Miami just missed the NCAA the past two seasons, but a deep NIT run last year took some of the bite out of missing the big dance.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did FSU get any more players with crack rammed up their assholes this season?

FSU basketball is a joke. Yeah they might improve, but high school games get more attendance. I know both people that have season tickets. Most times they use the ticket to wipe bird shit off their cars.

Kartik said...

LOL! FSU B-ball has far less fan interest then any other ACC school including Miami. (at least UM gets sell outs for ACc games though the attendence in lower then FSU's because nobody goes to the non league games against eastern directional tech U) It is just pathetic.

Anonymous said...

Leon v. Lincoln basketball attendance = 1879

FSU v. Clmson basketball attendance = 13 (11 parents of players and my 2 friends)

Anonymous said...

But FSU has that nice Leon County Arena that they play at. You would think that all of the brothas from FAMU would attend.

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