Carmelo Anthony. Carmelo Anthony. Carmelo Anthony. He is the best amateur basketball player in the world.
He looked like a man against boys on Saturday in Syracuse’s 95-84 win over Texas as he dropped a season-high 33 points and 14 rebounds. And the main reason Syracuse will beat Kansas in tonight’s national championship game is because Anthony will be wearing orange and not blue.
Nobody in college basketball can guard this man. Probably nobody in the pros’ can guard this man. So, definitely nobody on the Kansas team can guard him.
Who’s going to stop those 6-f00t-8 inch of greatness? The 6-foot-4 inch Keith Lankford; no, he will shoot over him and then snatch offensive rebounds like he did all night against Texas. Oh, I forgot the 6-foot-9 inch Nick Collison; no again, Anthony will take him to the rack every time.
Syracuse is not a one-man team, just a one-man show. Freshman point guard Gerry McNamara, one of the best shooters in the country, scored 19 points against Texas as he’s averaged 13.2 points per game on the season. And then there is sophomore forward Hakim Warrick, who scored 18 points against Texas and who,according to nbadraft.net, will probably be the number two pick in next year’s draft.
Warrick is faster than Collison. Kansas will learn early that most of its points will not be on easy fast break layups because they will be facing one of the fastest teams in the nation. The Jayhawks will then be forced to try to mingle with Syracuse’s unfriendly 2-3 zone that has only allowed 66 points per game in the tournament.
The zone probably will not slow down Lankford, but it will slow the streaky Kirk Hinrich and the overrated Collison.
Syracuse has already destroyed, decapitated and demolished three teams from the Big 12 in this tournament: Texas, Oklahoma (63-47) and Oklahoma State (68-56), so what makes Kansas any different?
Roy Williams decided for some reason not to schedule a single team from the Big East this season. I’m sorry Roy; you are not going to be able to escape defeat at the hands of the best overall conference in college basketball this season – the Big East.
Ibram Rogers, 20, is a junior magazine production student from Manasas Va. He is sports editor for The Famuan. He can be reached at Ibramrogers@aol.com.