NCAA Tournament 2017: One player who will dominate each region
Herculean individual runs through the NCAA Tournament are one of the best parts of March Madness. Who could be that guy this year?
In NCAA Tournament lore, many of the best stories are forged by spectacular individual performances. When one star puts a team on his back and carries them through the rounds is amazing to watch. In more recent years, one of the best examples of this is Kemba Walker. Starting with the Big East Tournament, he turned superhuman for the month of March and carried third-seeded UConn to a championship. Fellow UConn guard Shabazz Napier followed suit a few years later and did the same. Even last year, Oklahoma’s Buddy Hield carried his team to the Final Four, most memorably scoring 37 in the Elite Eight against Oregon.
So who are the best candidates to make that run this year? Who was the talent to dominate the region their team is in? Here we’ll cover one player in each region who is most likely to turn it on and lead their team to glory. Who knows, maybe we see a Kemba-like run through the tournament this year leading all the way to a championship.
East Region: Grayson Allen, Duke
According to many, Grayson Allen is the third-best player on his team behind Luke Kennard and Jayson Tatum. He is the most prone to taking over, though. Remember, this is a guy who in the preseason was being mentioned for National Player of the Year. He was picked as the preseason ACC Player of the Year. Clearly he has immense talent, even if he has struggled with consistency this year. Between his tripping incident and Kennard’s breakout year, he has been relegated to the background of the Duke storylines this season.
That is why he is primed to bust out and show his stuff in the NCAA Tournament.
In my opinion, much of the reason for Allen’s struggles can be placed on that pressure on him. To open the season, all eyes were on him to replicate or even one-up his spectacular sophomore season. After averaging 21.6 points per game and shooting 41.7 percent from deep, he declined to leave for the NBA Draft and returned to school. Duke was the consensus preseason title favorite and Allen was expected to be the player leading them there. Now, with eyes on Kennard and Jayson Tatum after his move to power forward, the stage is set for Allen to dominate. The junior scoring 25 or more points per game as Duke wins its way to the Final Four would not be terribly surprising. When Allen is on, nobody can stop him and that is a dangerous thing.