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The college basketball season started with ridiculously high expectations for incoming freshmen Andrew Wiggins of Kansas and Duke’s Jabari Parker. Both have had sensational seasons, but their teams are not considered among the top contenders to win a national title in the NCAA Tournament which tipped off Thursday and continues all weekend.
Most experts favor a pair of No. 4 seeds in Michigan State and Louisville or top-seeded Florida with all three coming off impressive runs to their respective conference championships in the Big Ten, AAC and SEC. Duke and Kansas open their potential runs Friday afternoon with the Blue Devils taking on Mercer and the Jayhawks playing Eastern Kentucky.
“Duke is an interesting team,” CBS analyst Clark Kellogg said. “They are clearly not at the level they have been at [in recent years], but in this landscape they still are very capable. I just haven’t seen the same force defensively from Duke that you see from Michigan State. That’s why people are leaning that direction for who might come out on top. But clearly Duke is one of about 12-15 teams that look like they have what it takes to get to North Texas and possibly win it.”
Kansas has Wiggins playing his best basketball of the season, averaging 31 points over his past three games. But it’s the health of their other freshman stud that could determine how far Kansas is able to advance through the South Region.
Joel Embiid’s bad back makes Kansas one of the wild cards of the tournament. He is expected to miss at least the first two games. Kansas hopes to have the center back if it advances to the Sweet 16, but that becomes a big if with a potential third-round matchup with a bruising New Mexico team.
“They need him to get all the way finish line,” said Kellogg, who was moved from the top announcing team to the studio this season, replaced by Greg Anthony.
“To win six in a row, they definitely need him, to handle Florida [in the Elite 8] if that was a matchup that ended up happening, I definitely think so. New Mexico has the size and physicality that can definitely challenge them. It’s not like they don’t have guys, Perry Ellis is capable, but I think they would need Embiid to get there.”
Parker and Wiggins are expected to be one-and-done, making this their only chance to leave a mark on the NCAA Tournament the way Carmelo Anthony did in leading Syracuse to a title in 2003, his lone college season.
“Parker has as well-rounded a game for a freshman that I’ve seen, particularly offensively,” Kellogg said. “He can do it inside, off the dribble, on the perimeter, rebounding the ball. Wiggins has tremendous upside, he’s really smooth, a tremendous athlete, a nice shooting touch and is only going to get better as he gets stronger. Both of them have been quite impressive.”