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 the next few weeks scouting everyone in the Big Dance.
Rightly or wrongly, a great March can really help a player's stock. NBA GMs, the real decision-makers come draft time, are in attendance and tend to be swayed by what they see on the big stage.
Last year, Gordon Hayward, Ekpe Udoh and Jordan Crawford boosted their stock with some great games. In 2009, Tyreke Evans and Jonny Flynn rode strong tournament performances to high lottery picks. In 2008, Derrick Rose moved past Michael Beasley on most NBA teams' boards with an excellent performance, and other players, such as Russell Westbrook and Brandon Rush, helped themselves with strong tournaments.
Who will help his stock this year? ESPN.com has talked to multiple NBA scouts and GMs in the course of the season to give you a look at the top five NBA prospects they'll be watching in each NCAA region.
We begin in the East Region, which is loaded with terrific draft prospects this year.
To read more about evaluations of the top NBA prospects in the NCAA tourney's East Region, you must be an ESPN Insider.
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Chad Ford
Chad Ford covers the NBA and NBA draft for ESPN Insider. He also is a frequent contributor to ESPN The Magazine and makes weekly appearances on ESPN Radio and ESPNEWS.
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Fran Fraschilla
Fran Fraschilla is a college basketball analyst for ESPN and ESPN Insider. He formerly was the head coach at Manhattan, St. John's and New Mexico. He has been part of ESPN's NBA draft broadcast coverage each of the past five seasons.
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David Thorpe
David Thorpe is an NBA analyst for ESPN.com's Scouts Inc. and the executive director of the Pro Training Center in Clearwater, Fla., where he oversees the player development program for NBA and college players. David has trained Kevin Martin, Corey Brewer, Omri Casspi, Joakim Noah, Luol Deng, Tyrus Thomas, Yi Jianlian, Courtney Lee, Kyrylo Fesenko, Earl Clark, Jrue Holiday, DeJuan Blair and others.
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