Florida St

Al-Farouq Aminu (Wake Forest)

Ed Davis (UNC)

Chris Singleton (Florida State)

Elliot Williams (Duke)

Other (Dequan Jones, Iman Shumpert, Ty Woods, etc)

 

Like civilizations, all great basketball programs eventually fall.. replaced by an upstart newcomer. In this week's Rise & Fall series, we'll take a look at which BCS programs are rising, falling, or merely treading water.

ACC

 

Florida State Seminoles

Atlantic Coast Conference (19-14, 7-9)

 

Big Wins: 2/6 at Miami (62-55), 2/19 Clemson (64-55), 3/8 Miami (75-72)

Florida State Seminoles

 

Overall Rank: #88

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.

NBA Draft: Al Thornton

I'm writing today's Dribble in the middle of what has already been a rather exciting day.

#1 Florida fell earlier to unranked Vanderbilt. A week or so back I wrote a Dribble about how the top 10 teams would fare the rest of the season. I predicted the Gators would fall at either LSU or Tennessee, but they'd easily get by the Dores. Well, I was completely wrong on that one. Vandy's two stars, Shan Foster and Derrick Byars, each brought their A games against last year's champions. The two combined for 48 points on 20 of 35 shooting. Vandy was 35th in the AP voting last week and should move up substantially after the big win.

Aaron Brooks, Al Thornton, Justin Hawkins, Dominic James, and Roderick Wilmont are this week's 5 Primetime Performers.

#24 Georgia Tech.. not anymore. #19 Maryland.. good try. #4 Florida.. thanks for playing. A season of wild upsets, surprise, and intrigue, continued on what was expected to be a somewhat quiet Sunday.

Don't feel bad for Gator fans though. Florida will play Ohio State in the National Championship game in football so today's 70-66 loss at Florida State will be forgotten. For FSU, Al Thornton was basically one man team. They needed everyone of his 28 points and 9 rebounds. The last 2 minutes of the game was all Thornton.. a nice post move in the paint, a 15 foot jumper, and a pair of free throws to lock the game up. The Gators were without Corey Brewer.. but his replacement Walter Hodge added 17 points so you can't blame it on that.

Favorite: Akron. Player of the Year: Romeo Travis. Conference Rank: 15th.