Shawn Siegel's Blog

There's a new thread on the message board entitled "Starting to Get the Bug." I wish I had that same feeling. Right now, the college basketball season seems more like a distant buzzing in my periphery.

I was hoping the FIBA Americas tournament would get me back into basketball mode. But then I forgot how good Team USA can be when Kobe and J-Kidd play, while squads like Argentina don't bring their top dogs.

Instead, speaking of dogs, the only bug I have is an urge to throw up every time I hear the name Michael Vick.

Rather quiet week in college basketball land.. and in the sports world in general. We chug along with our Top 144 preview, as #92 Seton Hall went online today.

I can't divulge who our #1 team will ultimately be.. but if I gave you 3 or 4 choices, you'd almost certainly be able to pick the team. Its a standard pick, one of the frontrunners, Kansas, UNC, Memphis, UCLA, etc. CHN also projected Florida as last year's NCAA Tournament winners.. a lame, boring pick, but the correct one.

Give credit to Wake Forest for making the right decision in naming Dino Gaudio the successor to Skip Prosser. Perhaps the lack of time prevented them from even considering a "bigger name" coach, but regardless of why the decision was made, it was the right one. Gaudio's 68-124 career head coaching record doesn't look good.. but only a magician could have been able to win at Army or Loyola in the 90's.

So its been awhile since I've composed a Daily Dribble.. and almost a month since I've even written anything related to college basketball. I spent the time studying for and finally taking the Bar Exam (a brutal test that no one should rightfully subject themselves to).. and in the meantime a lot has happened in the basketball world. The biggie was the NBA Draft just about four weeks ago and then the horrible news of Skip Prosser's untimely death at the end of last week.

Now that players have finalized their NBA plans.. its time to take another shot at the offseason Top 50. My last attempt was April 9th, and besides the Draft decisions, there were also a few coaching changes and player defections that change things as well.

I've left the original comments from April intact but added notes on changes since then in parentheses.

Every season, I project the future statistics of top NBA prospects. Before I get to this season's first projections for the 2007 prospects, I wanted to take a look back at 2006. Overall, I projected very meek stats for last year's class, and my lack of confidence turned out to be right. There just wasn't too much excitement. Luckily on the most part, my projections were pretty solid.

Last year's stats.
http://www.collegehoopsnet.com/Draft/2006stats.htm

PLAYER - PPG - RPG - APG - vs - Actual Stats
LaMarcus Aldridge - 11,5,2 vs 9,5,0
Maurice Ager - 4,2,1 vs 2,1,0

Today I finish up the position analysis series with the big men. Obviously the highlight here is Oden, but there's not much quality beyond the top few (especially since Hibbert decided to return to school.) This is nothing new for a position that hasn't been producing for about a decade..

Center

Continuing this week's position analysis.. I present to you: the Power Forwards.

Continuing this week's series of positional analysis, I move on to the small forwards. This is an amazingly deep group of kids. Wilson Chandler, down at #10, is about as talented as the 3rd or 4th best point guard.

1) Kevin Durant - Texas - There's nothing I can say hear that you don't know already. Except for the fact that Durant might be underrated. As a big man, Oden has a chance to be a dynastic, Tim Duncan-like winner. Durant might not win a handful of championships, but he's probably even a bigger lock to be a consistent all-star.

This is a follow up to yesterday's analysis of the point guard prospects. Tomorrow will be the small forwards. Shooting guard has some uncertainty as guys like Cook or Afflalo could (and I'd say should) return to school.