ANTHONY GETTINO
Special to The Leader
As you can tell from our own school’s athletics, winter sports in colleges have started up throughout the country. One of the favorites of many when it comes to winter college sports is basketball.
It has everything: nightly excitement in marquee games sprinkled throughout the season, wild upsets, conference matchups. And all that is finished out by the best playoffs in all sports: March Madness.
This year, there isn’t the player that everyone knows, or the super stud like good ole Zion Williamson last year. There are some solid players no doubt, but there isn’t going to be someone right away that blows everyone’s doors off nightly. There also isn’t a team that is considered a lock for the Final Four in March.
Here are some teams that could get there, though.
Michigan State: Led by the best player in the country, Cassius Winston, this is a team that analysts believe has the best chance to make it to the Final Four.
Florida: They have two five-star recruits, have returned their top player from a year ago and added the best transfer available on the transfer wire. They can be lethal from all parts of the court on offense.
Kentucky: For the first time in a long time, Kentucky returns a chunk of experience and doesn’t have to rely on freshmen to all mold together in the course of a few months for a title run. They do have an impact freshman in Tyrese Maxey.
Memphis: Memphis is doing what I just said Kentucky isn’t this year, with the number one recruiting class in the nation on the floor for them. They have the number one overall recruit in James Wiseman (although he may be done for the year for his now-coach helping him get housing in Memphis 10 years ago).
There are a large number of other teams that could all very well hang a banner at the end of this season, and there is no telling that any of these teams will be within the final teams going for it as well.
As for Player of the Year honors, there is no front-runner like in years past. Some contenders are Maxey (Kentucky), Wiseman (Memphis), Winston (Michigan St.), Cole Anthony (North Carolina) and Anthony Edwards (Georgia).
Earlier this year, the NCAA passed a vote that will allow the athletes to earn money off of their image and likeness. How this turns out remains to be seen, as it isn’t sure how the NCAA will be able to regulate this from happening, and if it will be run through the universities or be completely free reign. This could lead to a whole new world of NCAA, including the restarting of the NCAA video game franchise and more.