NBA Draft Busts: Sean May

The 2005 NBA Draft was a solid one. Producing All-Stars and All-NBA players such as Andrew Bogut, Deron Williams, Chris Paul, Danny Granger, and David Lee. Other above-average NBA players like Marvin Williams, Raymond Felton, Charlie Villanueva, Andrew Bynum, and Channing Frye to name a few, also came out of this draft. The 2005 Draft wasn’t without its busts, most notably the 13th overall pick, Sean May.

Sean May was a McDonald’s High School American and ended up playing his college ball for the University of North Carolina. May started at center for the Tar Heels in each of his 3 seasons in school. May’s shining moment came in the Tar Heel’s National Championship run in 2005 as he poured in 26 points on 10 of 11 from the field and adding 10 rebounds in the Championship Game win over Illinois. May’s outstanding play throughout the tournament earned him the Most Outstanding Player of the 2005 NCAA Tournament Award. May chose to go out on top and declared for the NBA Draft shortly after he and the Tar Heels won the school’s 4th National Title.

The Charlotte Bobcats took May with the 13th pick of the 2005 NBA Draft, one of 4 Tar Heels to be drafted in the lottery. The others included Marvin Williams with the 2nd pick, Raymond Felton with the 5th pick, and Rashad McCants with the 14th pick. May suffered a knee injury early into his rookie season and micro fracture surgery in the offseason held him out of the entire 2007 – 2008 season. May was never able to fully recover from surgery and the effects lingered into the following season, ultimately landing him on the inactive list due to not being physically fit to play. In 2009, the Bobcats chose not to pick up May’s 4th year option and he became an unrestricted free agent. Later in 2009, May was signed by the Sacramento Kings for the NBA’s minimum salary. The Kings did not resign May and instead the New Jersey Nets gave him a chance in 2010, but he was released in the preseason due to yet another injury. May decided to accept an offer to play overseas later on in 2010 and is currently employed by Fenerbahce Ulker of the Turkish League.

Let The Madness Begin

March Madness is finally here and that means everybody and their mother are filling out tournament brackets. Unless you’re one of the rare guys who fills out just one bracket of integrity, the rest of us fill out all kinds of brackets: your favorite’s bracket to your heart bracket to your gut bracket and everything inbetween. The NCAA Tournament is second to none when it comes to sport’s playoff intensity, raw emotion, and level of play, and I cannot wait til the ”Madness Begins.” Here’s my bracket predictions.

Sweet Sixteen

Midwest – #1 Kansas, #2 Ohio St., #3  Georgetown,#4 Maryland

West - #1 Syracuse, #2 Kansas St., #3 Pitt, #5 Butler

East - #1 Kentucky, #2 West Virginia, #3 New Mexico, #4 Wisconsin

South – #1 Duke, #2 Villanova, #3 Baylor, #5 Texas A&M

Elite 8

Midwest - #1 Kansas, #2 Ohio St. 

West – #1 Syracuse, #2 Kansas St.

East – #1 Kentucky, #2 West Virginia

South – #1 Duke, #3 Baylor

Final Four

Midwest – #1 Kansas

West – #2 Kansas St.

East – #1 Kentucky

South – #3 Baylor

Championship Game

#1 Kansas vs. #1 Kentucky

2010 NCAA Champion

#1 Kansas

Now that you’ve seen my finalized predictions, here are some teams that can mess up my bracket and many others.

Lower Seeded Sleepers

Midwest – #7 Oklahoma St., #10 Georgia Tech, #13 Houston

West – #12 UTEP, #13 Murray St.

East – #8 Texas, #12 Cornell

South – #7 Richmond, #8 California, #13 Siena

College Bball:Teams That are Quietly Moving Up

While Syracuse, Kansas, and Kentucky are battling atop the rankings, some other less talked about teams are quietly moving up and making their case for some national recognition. Teams like New Mexico, Temple, and Maryland are playing their best basketball at the right time and looking forward to making some noise in the NCAA Tournament.

#10 New Mexico (27-3) – The Mountain West leading Lobos cracked the top 10 in the latest poll, moving up two spots from #12. The Lobos have a great resume headlined by their rpi of 7 and schedule strength of 51, but their most impressive aspect of their resume is the Lobos 7-2 record against teams in the rpi top 50. New Mexico has to overcome the critics that say they play in a weak conference and played a weak out of conference schedule, but I am confident that come tournament time the Lobos of New Mexico will silence their critics.

#16 Temple (24-5) - The underappreciated Owls lead the surprise conference of the year, the A-10. Temple has been ranked since week 6 because of their more than credible body of work which consists of a rpi of 19, a strength of schedule of 69, and a 6-3 record against teams in the rpi top 50 including a win against Villanova. The Owls are led by their strong guard play with Brooks and Fernandez having a hand in a majority of the Owls points. The NCAA Tournament is all about the guards and I believe that Temple could stir some things up in March.

#23 Maryland (21-7) - The second place Terps in the ACC are finally back in the top 25 after a lengthy hietus. The Terps are back in the rankings after their double overtime win in Blacksburg in which ACC Player of the Year candidate Greivis Vasquez had 41 points to lead all scorers. The Terps are on a 5 game winning streak and have won 7 0f their last 8 overall, their only loss coming to Duke who they play Wednesday in College Park for the ACC crown. The Terps can definitely polish their resume with a win against 4th ranked Duke, but they have already pretty much locked up their NCAA Tournament bid. Maryland has a rpi of 25, a strength of schedule rank of 29, and 4 wins against the rpi top 50. As far as both the ACC and NCAA tournaments go, Maryland will go as far as Greivis Vasquez will take them.

College Bball:Good, Bad, & Ugly

This year’s field of 64 is on the verge of looking a lot different  
from years past, primarily because many of the so-called lock teams  
like UCONN and UNC have had a down year so far. Not only have some  
power teams been on the decline this year, but power conferences like  
the Pac-10 have also had their struggles. This has allowed conferences  
like the A-10 which usually gets only 1 or 2 teams in the NCAA  
Tournament the opportunity to get 3 or 4 teams in this year.

The Good

I can’t think of a more underrated, underappreciated, and overlooked conference than the A-10. Temple is the lone representative in the rankings for the A-10 conference, sitting at #21. But what the A-10 lacks in respect in the top 25 rankings, it gains in overall NCAA resume recognition. The A-10 currently ranks 6th in overall conference rpi and 7th in strength of schedule, ahead of conferences like C-USA, Mountain West, and the Pac-10. The A-10 also has 6 teams ranked in the top 45 in terms of rpi along with 6 teams ranked in the top 50 in terms of strength of schedule. To wrap up my case for the A-10 lets look at the projected NCAA tournament field as of today. According to ESPN’s Joe Lunardi, the A-10 has 6 teams in the tournament. That’s tied for second most by a conference with the ACC and Big East and is more than the Big Ten, SEC, and Mountain West. 

The Bad

The Pac-10 as a whole has been absolutely non-existent this year. Granted the conference did lose 9 of their top players to last year’s NBA draft, but with highly touted teams like Arizona and UCLA and above average teams like Oregon, USC, Cal, and Washington the Pac-10 has almost always recovered from one season to the next. To put into perspective how down the Pac-10 is this year lets look at the rankings. At this time last year the Pac-10 had 3 teams ranked in the top 25, this year the Pac-10 has zero. The Pac-10 also had 6 teams in the NCAA tournament last year and this year according to ESPN’s Joe Lunardi the Pac-10 currently has only the automatic bid that is awarded to the team that wins the conference tournament. 

The Ugly

Now before I come off as just another UNC hater I would liked to point out that I understand that the Tar Heels lost 4 starters to the NBA draft and obviously that’s a lot of stat stuffing and experience to replace. With that being said, the Tar Heels always bring in 5-star recruits with NBA potential and continue to roll along, but not this year. UNC freshman like Dexter Strickland, the Wear twins, and John Henson have played average basketball at best and pale in comparison to star freshman across the country like John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Xavier Henry, Avery Bradley, Derrick Favors and others. The Tar Heels and coach Roy Williams are in a downward spiral they’ve never seen before. UNC stands at next to last in the ACC with a 2-7 record in league play and a 13-11 record overall. The Tar Heels have lost 8 of their last 10 games and are currently riding a 4 game losing streak. To make matters worse, star forward/center Ed Davis has a broken wrist and will miss at least a month. Sorry UNC fans, looks like you’ll have to wait ’til next year.