ESPN’s mega preview of the upcoming college basketball season is out and Jeff Borzello, Joe Lunardi, Myron Medcalf and Neil Payne mostly hype Purdue, Florida, Michigan and Houston.
Only one of them (Lunardi)
sees Duke in the Final Four. All four pick Purdue while Houston and Michigan get support from two. Louisville gets some love from Borzello.
Three of the four pick Duke to win the ACC (Lunardi picks the Cardinals) and none of them see Cameron Boozer as the freshman of the year, splitting between Darryn Peterson and AJ Dybantsa.
However, three of the four have Boozer as an All-American.
Borzello has NC State as the team making the biggest leap from last season. That could be. Lunardi has Iowa. As we have noted for several years, and as he proved last year at Drake, Ben McCollum has serious coaching chops. We’re glad someone finally hired him and now he’s at a Big Ten school. Watch out.
Also worth noting: Hubert Davis comes in for some negative attention, with Borzello picking him as the coach with the most to lose.
Predictions are fun, but as always, everything is settled on the court.
The season starts on Monday with predictably lame games for ACC teams: UNC plays Central Arkansas, Virginia Tech gets Charleston Southern, Syracuse pays Binghamton to take a whooping, Pitt plays Youngstown State, BC hosts Florida Atlantic, Clemson gives New Hampshire a warm trip south, Virginia will ride Ryder, Notre Dame hosts long-faded power LIU, Wake takes on American, SMU brings in Tarleton State, Jacksonville heads south to Miami, Louisville will beat up on SC State and Cal hosts former D-II power Cal State Bakersfield.
Only Duke takes a risk in an opener, playing Texas in Charlotte on Tuesday. In the other Tuesday games, FSU will take the measure of Alcorn State and Stanford plays Portland State.
We will give special props to NC State for playing NC Central. We haven’t seen much about whatLeVelle Moton has this year, but he’s an excellent coach and an honorable man and he will get to play in his hometown. It’s really good of Will Wade to put Moton in front of friends and family.
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