Who has the best starting lineup in College basketball? I think it has to be Florida. Green, Humphrey, Brewer, Horford, Noah, can't stop them. Zona could be up there, Shakur, McClellan, Marcus Williams, Radenovic, and Walters/Budingers (all depends on what kind of lineup you want). Lets here your opinions......
I don't think it really matters to be honest. Who cares who your starting five are when you've got guys like Sherron Collins, Darrell Arthur, and C.J. Giles coming off the bench like Kansas does or Chase Budinger, J.P. Prince, and Mohamed Tangara like Arizona does? Those guys won't be starters in name, but they'll all play tons of minutes and be major difference makers. You've got to look at the whole roster, not just the first few guys on the court. Anyways, with that rant aside, I think that if you're going to just look at the starting lineup for some reason, then Kansas still has to be mentioned (Chalmers, Robinson, Rush, Wright, Kaun), and so does Georgia Tech (Crittenton, Clinch, Young, Smith, Dickey), but Florida and Wisconsin have hands down the two best starting lineups, not necessarily in just terms of talent but in terms of chemistry as well. If strictly speaking about talent, then I'd have to maybe rank Oregon, Michigan, and Syracuse over them, but all of the great individual talents on those teams haven't really been able to put it all together and play great as a single unit yet the way the starting lineups of Florida and Wisconsin have.
Thanks for the nod for my boys, VC; hopefully they will be a potent starting five, but I think the biggest hope we have to employ a dominant 5 is to move Kam Taylor off the point and have one of our frosh 1s take over, allowing Kam to do what he does best: shoot. I like our defense, with Tucker and Steimsma inside, and getting Landry back to go along with Krabb should give us arguably the most athletic team that the Badgers have ever had. As for other great starting 5s, Florida, Arizona and Kansas would be atop my list, too. G Tech has a sleeper starting five-last year they were a bunch of kids, and this year, with the maturity they showed last season, they could dominate. Other big time starting lineups: UNC-They return a dominant big, and almost all their solid complementary players from last year return, with more experience, and a terrific crop of frosh. Any five that the Tarheels plug in will be among the best in the nation. St. John's-Lamont Hamilton inside and Darryl Hill outside is a good place to start, and they've got some real talent to help out with Anthony Mason Jr. and Eugene Lawrence. With Lawrence and Hill, they have one of if not the best backcourt tandems in the Big East, and I think that's really saying something. They might make a big leap up the standings this year. LSU-They might have the deepest frontcourt in the nation; I mean, Big Baby, Lazarre, Tasmin Mitchell, and they hardly even used Magnum Rolle, a 6'10" super-talent, last year. Mitchell is a good place to start at guard, and Temple is only going to get better. They're very dangerous.
You know I'm going to say the Gators, but another sleeper one that you guys haven't mentioned is Alabama PG-Ronald Steele SG- SF-Alonzo Gee PF-Richard Hendricks C-Jamareo Davidson With a couple of good freshman recruits coming in to fill in the SG position and add depth.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting GatorsowntheNCAA:</div><div class="quote_post">You know I'm going to say the Gators, but another sleeper one that you guys haven't mentioned is Alabama PG-Ronald Steele SG- SF-Alonzo Gee PF-Richard Hendricks C-Jamareo Davidson With a couple of good freshman recruits coming in to fill in the SG position and add depth.</div> In my preseason rankings this year (should be published next month), I've gone through and listed all the projected depth charts, and here's what I came up with for Alabama - PG – Ron Steele (Jr.)/Mikhail Torrance (Fr.) G - Brandon Hollinger (So.)/Verice Cloyd (Fr.)/Justin Tubbs (Fr.) SF – Alonzo Gee (So.)/Mykal Riley (Jr.)/Greg Cage (Fr.) PF – Richard Hendrix (So.)/Demetrius Jemison (Fr.)/Avery Jukes (Fr.)/John Dill (Fr.) C - Jermareo Davidson (Sr.)/Yamene Coleman (Fr.) The 1, 3, 4, and 5 spots are solid, and maybe the best four player combo in college ball this year, but they've got a gaping hole at the 2 and a noticable lack of depth. Brandon Hollinger is 5'11" in platform shoes, so that'll put a lot more pressure on Steele and most likely limit his effectiveness. Sure, they could start Verice Cloyd or Justin Tubbs for height purposes, but neither one is ready for that starting job on the collegiate level, not by a longshot, so they'd be better off just playing small ball with the more experienced (and probably more talented) Hollinger. Also, notice how there's only one upperclassmen off the bench in that rotation, Mykal Riley, and he wasn't even with the team last year; he's a JuCo recruit. <div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">St. John's-Lamont Hamilton inside and Darryl Hill outside is a good place to start, and they've got some real talent to help out with Anthony Mason Jr. and Eugene Lawrence. With Lawrence and Hill, they have one of if not the best backcourt tandems in the Big East, and I think that's really saying something. They might make a big leap up the standings this year. </div> Good call; maybe a bit of a stretch for the best, but a great sleeper pick though. I'm kind of biased towards Mason (same AAU league). However, even though he may never be the caliber of player his father was, I've still got to rank him as one of the top 25-50 rising sophomores looking at it as objectively as possible.
Oh Snaps! A Schaddy Sighting, I haven't seen him in awhile. Anyways, I think Florida win this outright, another sleeper could be Duke, depends how the Frosh play for them. Paulus and McRoberts are nice duo to build around.
Co-sign on Oregon, they're going to surprise a lot of teams this year. They should be right in the mix for the Pac-10 title. Malik Hairston has all the incentive in the world to have a breakout season and improve his draft stock. He could be this year's version Brandon Roy for the Ducks. Duke and UNC will also be stacked as usual.
Georgia Tech, UNC, Florida, Kansas, Alabama, and Oregon all have great starting lineups. If I had to pick one, I'd go with the boys down in Gainesville. They've already proven themselves to be Champions of the college basketball world, and they're all coming back. Teams like Georgia Tech, UNC, and Kansas have talent, but they're extremly young and inexperienced, which may hurt them in the long run.
I figured Kansas would get a little more publicity, but it looks like most of you have overlooked them(besides Voodoo). The freshman trio of Mario Chalmers, Brandon Rush, and Julian Wright will be a year older and could be quite possibly the best trio of players in the nation. Then you add in Sasha Kaun in the paint, who had a very nice year sophomore season and Russell Robinson was a big spark for the Jayhawks last year off the bench and as an emergency starter. And don't forget about their incoming recruiting class- Darrell Arthur, Sherron Collins, and Brady Morningstar were all top 150 recruits. Kansas may have both the best starting lineup and best depth, IMO.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting hoops4life:</div><div class="quote_post">duke owns! (coming from a "slightly" biased opinion)</div> Dukies shouldn't even be mentioned in this thread with the UNC's, Kansas', Florida's and Zona's
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting hoops4life:</div><div class="quote_post">duke owns!</div> Didn't know Dickie V was a member of this site.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting J_Ray:</div><div class="quote_post">Dukies shouldn't even be mentioned in this thread with the UNC's, Kansas', Florida's and Zona's </div> Boy does that sound sweet. I never thought I would hear that.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Run BJM:</div><div class="quote_post">Didn't know Dickie V was a member of this site.</div> Where did you think Dicky V got his material from? He comes here to listen to our college crew
