Syracuse Regional stocked with lottery prospects

It's March Madness, baby! It's the big stage for some of college basketball's best players to show off their games. NBA scouts and general managers will be out in force over the next few weeks scouting everyone in the Big Dance.

A great March can really help a player's stock. Last year, UConn's Emeka Okafor and Ben Gordon, Duke's Luol Deng, Stanford's Josh Childress, Arizona's Andre Iguodala and BYU's Rafael Araujo all rode strong performances into the lottery. In 2003, Syracuse's Carmelo Anthony, Marquette's Dwyane Wade, Kansas' Kirk Hinrich and Nick Collison, and Central Michigan's Chris Kaman used the tournament to catapult themselves into the lottery.

In previous years, Maryland's Chris Wilcox, Arizona's Richard Jefferson, Florida's Mike Miller, Miami-Ohio's Wally Szczerbiak and Connecticut's Richard Hamilton helped their draft position significantly in March.

This year, with such an open draft field, a number of players could take advantage of the national stage to supercharge their draft stock.

Who will it be this year? ESPN Insider talked to multiple NBA scouts and GMs to give you a look at the top five NBA prospects they'll be watching in each NCAA region.

Today, Insider will take a look at the East's Syracuse Regional bracket, which might be the most-loaded NBA prospect bracket in the history of the tournament. There could be as many as seven lottery picks in this regional. Tuesday, we'll tackle the South's Austin Regional bracket.

For the inside scoop on every team in the tournament, check out Insider's in-depth Tournament Guide.

To continue reading this article you must be an Insider

• Recommend0
• Tweet0
• Email
• Subscribe

Chad Ford | email

Senior Writer, NBA Insider

• Follow
• Archive

• Senior NBA Writer for ESPN.com
• ESPN Insider NBA Draft Analyst since 2002
• Writes ESPN's NBA Draft Top 100 and Lottery Mock Draft