NCAA MARCH MADDNESS

By Gerry Ahern and Jason King, Yahoo! Sports ~ If March plays out anything like February finished, we are in for one wild, unpredictable and entertaining NCAA tournament. The nation’s Nos. 1, 2 and 3 teams fell this past weekend, setting the stage for plenty of handwringing among those who like to speculate what the NCAA Selection Committee will make official on March 14. Which brings us to this week’s question: Who are the four No. 1 seeds for the Big Dance?To me, the biggest tournament-changing development was not the weekend upsets, but the unfortunate, season-ending knee injury suffered by Purdue’s Robbie Hummel at Minnesota on Wednesday. Without Hummel, the Boilermakers lost their key Big Ten matchup with Michigan State on Sunday and showed just how important Hummel is to their offense. They also likely kissed goodbye any chance of earning a No. 1 NCAA seed. My top three teams remain the same. Syracuse moves up to the No. 1 overall seed after destroying a very good Villanova team on Saturday. The Orange are the best team in the best conference in the country. Kentucky and Kansas are both solid No. 1s though they showed serious flaws in Saturday’s losses. The Wildcats couldn’t hit a shot all day in bowing to Tennessee. The Jayhawks didn’t defend anyone in getting beat up by Oklahoma State. You can bet John Calipari and Bill Self will be working on correcting those shortcomings this week. The fourth No. 1 seed is harder to discern. For now, I’ll go with Duke, the class of a down ACC. The Blue Devils can play with anyone when Kyle Singler is on and lose to lesser teams when he’s not. Their spot remains tenuous as they have to travel to Maryland and beat struggling but angry archrival North Carolina to finish the regular season. Kansas State has a shot at stealing a No. 1, at least on paper. But it would have to beat Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse and I don’t like those odds. So if not Duke then who? How about Purdue if it can run the table in the regular season and win the Big Ten tournament in Indianapolis? It’s not as though the cupboard is bare without Hummel. But JaJuan Johnson, E’Twaun Moore, Keaton Grant, Chris Kramer and Lewis Jackson are all going to have to elevate their games to make that happen.