LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — What if I told you the NBA Finals begin Thursday night and not a single guy from Duke University is listed among the top 14 players for either the Oklahoma City Thunder or Indiana Pacers?
The Blue Devils are 0 for 28.
How will ABC and ESPN finesse that one with their deep and persistent Duke connections? With a story on who Cooper Flagg believes will win the title?
Don’t share this with Rick Pitino, Danny Hurley or Shaka Smart, but what if I also told you the entire Big East Conference was missing in action from these Finals?
That’s correct. The Big Sky, Big West and Missouri Valley conferences all have guys listed among the 28 players most likely to be active for the Finals.
The Big East does not have any.
There is talk these are the small market Finals because it matches relatively unknown teams from Oklahoma City and Indianapolis.
I would call it the NBA Finals where the Name Brand Colleges have been forgotten.
Nobody from Duke, UConn, Villanova, Baylor, Michigan State, Purdue, Florida, Louisville, UCLA, Auburn, Alabama, Michigan or Ohio State is participating.
I’m not finished. The decline of the Big Ten and Atlantic Coast conferences have become talking points in recent college basketball seasons. The Thunder and Pacers’ rosters reflect something is lacking in the Big Ten and ACC.
Only two players from each of those leagues are likely to be active — and I wouldn’t expect them to get major minutes.
Thomas Bryant of Indiana, Tony Bradley of North Carolina and James Johnson of Wake Forest rank 10th, 11th and 12th in playoff scoring for Rick Carlisle and the Pacers.
The Big Ten’s second representative is Aaron Wiggins. He played at Maryland. He scored 7 points while playing in four of the five games that the Thunder needed to dispatch the Minnesota Timberwolves in the Western Conference Finals.
You want to know which two leagues will be heavily represented in the Finals?
It is the two generally considered the two best in college basketball in recent seasons — the Southeastern and Big 12 conferences.
I found seven players from both leagues.
For the SEC, that is two from Kentucky, two from Arkansas and one each from Texas A&M, Texas and Vanderbilt.
For the Big 12, that is two from Arizona as well as one from TCU, Arizona State, Kansas, Houston and Iowa State.
With guards Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Cason Wallace playing critical roles for the Thunder, Kentucky basketball will generate plenty of publicity the next two weeks, especially if the Thunder deliver as solid favorites to win the 2025 NBA title.
Kentucky is one of four schools with two players listed among the top 14 players for the Pacers and Thunder.
The other three are Arkansas (Isaiah Joe, Jaylin Williams, both on the Thunder); Arizona (T.J. McConnell, Bennedict Mathurin, both Pacers) and Gonzaga (Chet Holmgrem of OKC and Andrew Nembhard of the Pacers.)
No Jayson Tatum, no Paolo Banchero, no Grayson Allen, no Zion Williamson, no Kyrie Irving, no Kyle Filipowski, no reason to turn it into a Duke Love-In.
Neither of the two leading stars were Top 10 draft picks.
Gilgeous-Alexander was picked 11th out of Kentucky in 2018 by Charlotte, who promptly traded him to the Los Angeles Clippers.
One season later the Clippers were done. LA sent him to OKC, where Gilgeous-Alexander quickly became an all-NBA performer as well as this season’s scoring leader and MVP.
If the Pacers deliver the upset in the Finals, the star is likely to be their point guard Tyrese Haliburton. He was not a consensus Top 100 prospect out of North High School in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, which explains why he played two seasons of college basketball for former Murray State coach Steve Prohm at Iowa State.
Haliburton went 12th in the 2020 NBA Draft, behind James Wiseman and Killian Hayes. The Sacramento Kings finally had their first franchise player since Chris Webber.
In February of 2022, his second NBA season, Haliburton was shipped to Indiana for Domantas Sabonis. Last season Haliburton took the Pacers to the Eastern Conference finals.
This season Haliburton can give the Pacers their first NBA title — in an NBA Finals that is missing Duke and a long list of Brand Names college programs.
The post BOZICH | Brand names like Duke, Big East forgotten in these NBA Finals first appeared on Voxtrend News.
