The round of 64 has officially concluded, and the NCAA Tournament has narrowed to an even more talented group of 32.<\/p>\n
While the first round didn’t feature blistering prospect matchups, as March Madness trudges on, prospects will face off in even higher stakes games. Sunday’s slate is loaded with already good games, made even better by the potential NBA Draft implications.<\/p>\n
Below are the top prospects and matchups to watch in today’s loaded March Madness slate:<\/p>\n
Zuby Ejiofor (St. John\u2019s) vs. Darryn Peterson and Flory Bidunga (Kansas)<\/p>\n
Fourth-seeded Kansas and fifth-seeded St. John\u2019s will battle eat 4:15 p.m. CT, offering one of the more anticipated matchups in the tournament.<\/p>\n
The obvious draw is potential No. 1 pick Darryn Peterson, and how he\u2019ll fare against top competition and a great defense. He poured on a team-high 28 points versus California Baptist on Friday, but the Red Storm will offer a much different test.<\/p>\n
Those who join for Peterson will probably be enamored by Ejiofor versus Bidunga, which will be among the more impressive big battles of the tournament.<\/p>\n
Bennett Stirtz (Iowa) vs. Thomas Haugh and Rueben Chinyelu (Florida)<\/p>\n
Ninth-seeded Iowa is set to take on first-seeded Florida at 6:10 p.m., offering a take-care-of-business chance for the Gators, and a real opportunity for Bennett Stirtz and the Hawkeyes.<\/p>\n
Stirtz has been one of the top guards in college basketball this year, averaging nearly 20 points on 48% shooting. After transferring from Division II and the Missouri Valley Conference, many scouts and decision-makers were looking to see how Stirtz would far against better competition.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s passed his senior season test, but another outing versus a team with several NBA-level players and defenders \u2014 notably Haugh and Chinyelu \u2014 would potentially do wonders for his stock.<\/p>\n
Christian Anderson (Texas Tech) vs. Labaron Philon (Alabama)<\/p>\n
At 8:45 p.m. CT, two of the top point guards in the nation will face off in Texas Tech vs. Alabama.<\/p>\n
Anderson and Philon have seen similar collegiate paths so far, both seeing productive freshman seasons, before returning for blistering sophomore years that have placed them both among the best scorers and players in the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Anderson led the Red Raiders to a 20-point win in the first round, scoring 18 points on 50% shooting, with five assists, four rebounds and four steals. Philon was similarly good against Hofstra, going for 29 points, five assists, eight rebounds and three steals.<\/p>\n
Their meeting on Sunday is sure to cause fireworks, and could change opinions at some level.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The round of 64 has officially concluded, and the NCAA Tournament has narrowed to an even more talented…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-553194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}