In Saturday's "Game of the Year" between North Carolina and Kentucky, the star players for both teams were front and center. Tar Heel Harrison Barnes helped get Carolina in position to have a final shot to win with a late timely three and was tied for the team lead in points with one of his vaunted frontcourt mates, Tyler Zeller. The third member of that group, John Henson, factored heavily in Carolina's last possession, as his shot with seconds left was blocked by perhaps the one player in the country who could, Kentucky freshman Anthony Davis. The other highly regarded Kentucky freshmen, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Marquis Teague, were on display throughout the nail-biter (albeit with Kidd-Gilchrist performing the better of the two).
However, below that level of the two favorites to meet for the title in New Orleans are many players that have performed highly, but aren't as well-known by the average college basketball fan. All three of these players are on teams that could at the very least appear in the NCAAs, and could stay a while.
Michael Glover, Iona
For the first time in several years at this point of the season, VMI is not the nation's highest scoring team. For right now, Iona holds that distinction. Of course, scoring a massive amount of points is often a function of pace in college basketball, and only four teams in the nation move play faster than Iona.
As a team, the Gaels have a fantastic effective shooting percentage of 55.9%, and Glover is their talisman in the paint offensively, going for 19.9 points a game on 61.8% shooting from the field. Despite this being his second straight year leading the Gaels in rebounding and scoring, Glover is probably not the most recognizable name to college basketball fans.
That honor would have to go to Momo Jones, the former Arizona guard who played in 38 games with the Wildcats last year, but was granted a hardship waiver by the NCAA to play closer to his Harlem home and ailing grandmother. The recruitment of Jones by coach Tim Cluess is representative of the second-year coach's ability to attract solid New York City talent early in his tenure after coaching at Division II Long Island-C.W. Post. Glover himself is a transfer, originally starting at Seton Hall, where he was later ruled ineligible due to irregularities with his high school transcript. He bounced around the junior college ranks for a couple years before starting with Cluess at Iona at the beginning of last year.
Iona perhaps went unfairly unnoticed at a national level a year ago due to the regular season dominance of Fairfield in the MAAC, but this year the Gaels are prohibitive favorites to make the NCAAs out of the league. Iona nearly beat Purdue in the first game of the Puerto Rico Tip-Off, but smashed Maryland by 26 later in the tourney.
Doug McDermott, Creighton
A higher-profile national college sports columnist once said about players playing for their father at the college level, "You better be the best player on the team or the worst." McDermott certainly qualifies as the former, playing for his dad, Greg, on a nationally ranked Creighton team that returned all but one of its key contributors from a 23-win team a year ago.
Currently, McDermott is putting up unbelievable offensive numbers as an inside-outside power forward. The 6-7 sophomore is averaging 23.7 points a game, good enough to be the fifth leading scorer in the country. He has made 64.2% of his twos and 57.7% of his threes, adding up to an effective field goal mark of 69.6%. The Bluejays have beaten two Big Ten teams this season, but seeing as how the two are named "Iowa" and "Nebraska," the most impressive win Creighton has thus far is over surprising San Diego State.
Incredibly, father thought son would be best off redshirting before his freshman season in October, but injuries pushed Doug into early playing time. McDermott the younger excelled once he got on the floor, winning Missouri Valley Freshman and Newcomer of the Year. McDermott looks to have taken yet another leap as a sophomore, coming after a summer playing with Team USA's U-19 squad at the World Championships in Latvia.
One interesting anecdote about McDermott is that he was a high school teammate of Barnes at Ames High School. It's no wonder that the duo led the Little Cyclones to undefeated state championships in 2009 and 2010. McDermott originally committed Northern Iowa, but was released from his letter-of-intent so he could play for his dad when he was hired away from Iowa State to coach Creighton.
Despite being ranked in the middle of the league in the preseason, McDermott's would-be school, Northern Iowa, has put together the second-best non-conference resume in the Valley and could represent surprise competition for Creighton in the league. Wichita State should once again be a quality team, and knocked off previously undefeated, North Carolina-slaying UNLV last Sunday.
Meyers Leonard, Illinois
It's odd how college basketball works sometimes. Last season, Illinois was supposed to have one of the best sides in the Big Ten. Demetri McCamey, Mike Davis and Mike Tisdale were all back for their senior seasons and talented underclassmen like DJ Richardson, Jereme Richmond and Brandon Paul were to make the Illini that much better. The end result was a 13-loss team that looked like it hated playing with each other, going 9-9 in conference. After early January, Illinois never once won two games in a row.
Improbably, after being picked in the middle of the Big Ten, this year's Illini are 8-0 and are coming off of decent-to-solid wins against Maryland and Gonzaga last week. Their leading scorer to this point is Leonard, a bit player as a highly touted freshman recruit in 2010-11 who averaged nearly as many fouls per game as points per game a year ago.
The 7-1 center is still somewhat raw on the offensive end of the floor, but has improved so much in the past year that his shooting percentage has gone from below 50% to above 60%. Defensively, Leonard may already be one of the best big men in the Big Ten, but should improve his rebounding. Leonard is coming off perhaps his best performance in an Illini uniform against Gonzaga, going 9-for-11 from the floor for 21 points, despite being saddled with first-half foul trouble.
Richardson has performed well during Illinois' 8-0 start, but Paul will have to be more efficient if the Illini have any chance of breaking into the top three of the Big Ten in 2012. Despite the disappointing summer for Team USA's U19s in Latvia, it appears that something about that team has made its players improve. Like McDermott, Leonard played solid minutes for Paul Hewitt's team.
There are many, many more players in America that could be profiled as under-the-radar stars or budding stars. However, not all have the chance to lead their teams to March success like Glover, McDermott, and Leonard do with Iona, Creighton, and Illinois, respectively.
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