Thursday, April 11, 2013

What If Tournament

Time for a crazy hypothetical - what if you took a double-digit seeded team from this year's NCAA tourney and put an NBA All-Star on their team?  How far would they go?

For the terms of this discussion (in which only I will talk) let's exclude LeBron because if you put him on any Division 1 team I think you have a good argument that he could win it all.  Let's also say the All-Star is relatively still in his prime, for example Chris Bosh right this second would be placed on Montana (who was a 13 seed).

Montana is in the Big Sky conference. The best team they played before the tournament was San Diego State and they lost.  They are obviously an OK team since they did at least win their terrible conference   Enter Chris Bosh.  I think he will raise their rebounding which was ranked 303rd!  They averaged 31 rebounds a game - Chris Bosh equals that.   Montana is a very efficient team with the 23rd best field goal percentage in basketball which Bosh will only add to. Now there are a lot of NBA level talents in the tournament, but no one being talked about being able to compare to Bosh, even when they reach their potential.

Based on this year's tournament, the first game would be one of the hardest against Syracuse. Their zone suffocated Montana and ended up in a 47 point win for the Orange.  Based on their 20% shooting percentage including 4-31 from 3; I would say they were a tiny bit nervous.  Having Bosh would definitely help settle that.  It would also help that Syracuse would have to collapse their zone on Bosh opening up their shooters.  Having a great big man or sharp shooters is the key to beating a zone and Bosh can do that. Montana squeaks by in a close one.

Next up would be Cal who finished fourth in the Pac-12.  Bosh and company dominates, wins by 20.

Indiana is next.  Indiana has some good talent but never got it going in the tournament.  Zeller is a good college player but going up against Bosh would be like Bosh versus Tyler Hansborough in the NBA - no match.  Indiana's other players could do some damage but I think having Zeller would give the Hoosiers false hope that he could control Bosh which would lead to Bosh's 20 point, 20 rebound effort in a 5 point win.

Up next is Marquette.  Marquette has some very good players but their weakness is that they cannot shoot that well.  They make up for it by getting great penetration but that comes to a screeching halt with Bosh lurking in the middle.  Those layups turn into short contested jumpers at best and dealing with Bosh on defense gets a lot of the Golden Eagles into foul trouble.  I could see this game getting out of control early.  Montana wins by 12.

Now it gets harder with Michigan.  This is a tough match-up because Michigan's guards are just so much better that Montana's.  Bosh might get into foul trouble here with everyone blowing by the defense into the lane.  This game becomes a classic scoring battle between Michigan's guards on one side and Bosh on the other.  I would probably take Michigan here in a tight one to end the run. Still a solid run.

To sum it up if you take a current NBA-All Star and drop them on almost any NCAA tournament team, you can make a solid argument for them getting to the Final Four or even cutting down the nets - especially this year where there was not dominate team and no dominate players.

"That's right - they're the Grizzlies. Bet you didn't know that."

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