With the NCAA tournament a few days away and everyone in America filling out their brackets, people are scrambling all over the place doing their best to research the match ups and figure out which team has the best shot of winning it all this year.The number one seeds always look great to win it all on paper, but for some reason it doesn't always translate onto the court. Recent news struck today that could affect millions of brackets around the nation. The Syracuse Orange, who are the number one seeded team in the Eastern Region, will not have their 7 foot center Fab Melo throughout the tournament due to academic violations.
Syracuse every year seems to have a scandal hit them and it never makes the papers too much. Earlier this season Melo was forced to miss three games because of another academic incident. However, this time, with Melo out for the tournament the Orange should start to worry.
Priding themselves on their 2-3 zone defensively, Melo is the rock in the middle that controls the paint. Without Melo, teams are likely to attack the paint repeatedly on the Orange hoping to pick up a lot of points in the paint.
This is a huge loss for the Orange who went 31-2 in the season only losing to Notre Dame and Cincinnati. Melo was averaging around 8 points and six rebounds a game, but his presence on the court is what affected most opponents. Players are forced to alter their shots and put the ball up quicker than normal because of the long armed 7 footer in the paint.
Syracuse is in one of the harder regions in the bracket this year with Ohio State, Vanderbilt, Florida State, Cincinnati, Wisconsin, and a few others.
Brackets are going to be a mess for most people and Syracuse may not be the favorite to win the eastern region anymore. The Orange have a lot to overcome this year without their big man and they will have to ultimately prepare for the vigorous competition they are going to see in the tournament.
I heard about the whole Fab Melo situation this morning. I dont think the orange will be able to go to far without him either. Im more interested in finding out exactly what incident occured.
ReplyDeleteWhat does everyone think of the decision by the NCAA/Syracuse to say he's suspended but not say what for? Do you agree with the privacy issue for student athletes in this situation? Or do you think it's counterproductive in that the secrecy inevitably leads to so much speculation that it might be better off to be upfront about the reason?
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