College Basketball in Review: Biggest Stories of 2007

Yes its cliché, end of year articles about the biggest stories of the year, or the best moments, or the most important people.  But, what can you do.. there’s just something nostalgic about New Year’s time.  So I decided to ask CHN writers some of the standard year in review questions, a nice way to wrap up what was an exciting year in college basketball.

Today's Question: What was the biggest college basketball story of 2007?  

Jeff Borzello – Florida's Dynasty

The biggest story had to be Florida's quest to repeat as national champions and how it eventually was successful in that task. Everyone doubting the Gators down the stretch of the season probably gave them more incentive to win it all. We won't see another repeat champion for a long, long time.

Jason Brubaker – Florida's Dynasty/The Freshmen

The biggest story would either be Florida's repeat championship, or the impact of the freshmen (Oden, Durant, Wright). With the NBA's new rule, and freshmen more prepared to play immediately now than ever, one-and-done stars who make huge impacts may become more frequent.

Jeff Fox – Kevin Durant

His play has totally raised the expectation levels for NCAA freshmen and changed the way people around college basketball view freshmen.

Raphielle Johnson  – Florida's Dynasty

The “Oh Fours” accomplishing what they returned to Gainesville to do: repeat as national champions. I don’t think we’ll see a team that unselfish, or committed, for a long time to come.

Jon Teitel – The Freshmen

Freshmen, freshmen, freshmen: from Oden and Durant last spring to Beasley/Mayo/Love/Gordon/Rose right now.  When the NBA imposed a rule about not drafting players right out of high school, I was uncertain what impact it would have, but there is no doubt that one result is that a lot of good teams got a lot of young guys who are going to do a lot of great things in March.
 

Jason Tomassini – The Freshmen

Kevin Durant and Greg Oden were great and Mayo, Rose, Gordon, Beasley, etc., etc. have certainly carried the torch, but it’s the drastic way they have changed the post NBA age-minimum landscape in college hoops that has made this such a story. The high stakes recruiting, the conflict of education for one and done players, the sky-high talent level; it’s been gradually changing for years, but no one could have expected the acceleration we saw.

Joel Welser – Durant vs Oden

The biggest story of 2007 was the story that developed between Kevin Durant and Greg Oden. It started with battling for Freshman of the Year honors and ended with at the NBA Draft.

Yesterday's 2007 Review article: What was your favorite moment from 2007?

Up Next: What will be the best regular season game in 2008?