Purdue's E'twaun Moore

Earlier this morning we gave you four Players to Watch in the Midwest region. Here are four more from the South…

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E’TWAUN MOORE, Purdue, SG, Jr.
The Boilermakers don’t need to look hard for motivation. Pretty much everybody wrote them off when star forward Robbie Hummel went down with a season-ending knee injury in late-February, and the remaining stragglers signed Purdue’s death certificate after Minnesota ran through them in the Big Ten tournament. If anybody is going to cover for Hummel’s absence, it’s Moore (16.6 ppg). The 6-3 junior is more of a shooter and pure scorer than an athlete. He’s been up-and-down in the five games since Hummel got hurt; going 1-for-14 in the Minnesota game after dropping 28 points on Northwestern in a win. Meanwhile, the team has gone 3-2 in that stretch, although both losses were against Tournament-bound squads while the wins were against Indiana, Penn State and Northwestern.

EKPE UDOH (Jr.) & QUINCY ACY (Soph.), Baylor, C/PF
While their run to a potential Big 12 tournament championship fell short, this has still been perhaps the most successful season in Baylor basketball history. It’s been a team effort, so it’s tough to pick out just one guy as the standout, but the frontcourt tandem of Udoh and Acy are as valuable as anyone. Udoh (13.9 ppg, 9.8 rpg, 3.9 bpg) is a 6-10 future Lottery pick who has been a smash hit in his first year at Baylor after transferring from Michigan. Acy (9.3 ppg, 5.1 rpg) is undersized for his position at 6-7, but he’s an explosive athlete who tries to dunk or swat every ball that gets in his vicinity. If the 3-seed Bears get past Sam Houston State in the first round, they’ll possibly be looking at a clash of the titans with Luke Harangody and Notre Dame’s tough front line.

California's Jerome Randle

JEROME RANDLE, California, PG, Jr.
Theo Robertson is on a hot streak and Patrick Christopher is probably the best NBA prospect, but Randle (18.7 ppg, 4.5 apg) is simply one of the most exciting players in the country. The 5-10 Chicago native and reigning Pac-10 Player of the Year will stop and pull up from 25 feet and beyond like he’s taking a free throw, or break his man’s ankles with stop-and-gos and crossovers to set up circus shots in the lane. Early in the first half of Cal’s conference tournament win over Oregon, Randle drained a 28-foot triple, then stole the inbound pass and wrapped the ball around his back on his way to a reverse layup. At least once per game he has one of those “Call somebody and tell ‘em what happened” moments.

KEVIN ANDERSON, Richmond, PG, Jr.
Where did Richmond come from as a 7th seed? If you didn’t know, the Atlantic-10 conference snuck up out of nowhere to be something of a force this year, putting three teams in the Big Dance and having a few more in Bracketology discussions throughout the year. Anderson is the reigning conference P.O.Y., averaging 17.8 points and 1.7 steals for the Spiders, who finished 26-8 overall. The six-footer dropped 31 points in a loss to Wake Forest, 29 on conference champ Temple, and 27 on tournament-bound Xavier. Getting past giant-killer St. Mary’s in the first round won’t be an easy task for a non-giant, but if Anderson helps pull it off, he’s got a likely Round Two head-to-head with Villanova’s Scottie Reynolds.