With only a few weeks until March Madness begins, it is time to discuss which teams flying under the radar have a good chance of making a run in the NCAA tournament. The Purdue Boilermakers, lead by JaJuan Johnson, are kinda flying under the radar in the Big Ten, even though they just beat OSU.
Many thought OSU would win that game, but Purdue got hot and made some baskets when it counted. Many fans I saw had on a JaJuan Johnson #25 jersey in order to help out the home team, even though he was double teamed much of the night. While they are a very dangerous team, people will not be surprised by them any more after their big win. After Hummel got hurt for the year, many writers and basketball fans wrote off Purdue and did not think they would get very far.
That appears to be wrong as Purdue basketball is near the top 10 in the country and has a lot of momentum going into the Big Ten tournament the first week in March. The tournament brings some funny things, if you can remember George Mason making a Final Four run a few years ago and Davidson nearly pulling it off with Stephen Curry two years back. Could BYU or San Diego State make a run this year?
We will know in a few weeks and getting by that tough first round matchup is often the hardest part. There are many teams that can win on a given day and that is what makes the 1st round of the NCAA tournament so great. Ten times better than the BCS, but that is a story for a different day.
Let us look forward to great college basketball and watch for the big upsets that seem to happen every year in the tournament.
My prediction is for Purdue to make it to the Sweet 16.
