Every year players emerge from no-where to become household names come NCAA Tournament time. Here are five, that you’ll need to know before filling out your brackets this March.

As a Canadian, the past few years it’s been tough to follow the NCAA Tournament as closely as I would have liked. Sure, CBS Sports does a great job in the United States, but not all of their online content is made available to Canadians like myself. Needless to say I let out a fist pump when I got some information from Cameron at The Score.

It takes a full season to get to this point. We dissect teams, watch hundreds of games and learn the smallest nuances about our favorite schools and players. While picking your NCAA Tournament bracket will always be an inexact science, there are trends that stand out year to year that can help you when making those tough picks.

Are you looking for some help filling out your March Madness brackets? Or, are you a college hoops fan looking for another perspective on the Tournament? If so, make sure you take 10 minutes to listen to my chat with Aaron Torres this afternoon.

Each time anyone hit a basket to start the game, it felt like the roof was about to blow off. The same at the beginning and end of each overtime. And when the game finally did end, there was both cheering and relief from Syracuse nation, and likewise from UConn fans. There are many things that I will carry with me from attending this game, well beyond what the final scoreboard read.

After losing three of their first nine games, John Calipari inserted true freshman Tyreke Evans into the point guard position, and Memphis has rolled ever since, winning 22 straight games entering Championship Week. The Tigers are college basketball’s hottest team, and return several players who played significant roles in the school’s Final Four run a year ago. But do they have enough to quiet the ghosts of 2008, and win it all this year?

Rick Pitino’s bunch is athletic and talented, and may be the deepest team of any of college basketball’s true contenders. Louisville has been great of late, but were the early season losses just blips on the radar, or a sign of things to come?

As successful as they’ve been in league play, Pittsburgh is still searching for NCAA Tournament validation because no one on this team – player or coach – has ever advanced past the Sweet 16. This is Pitt’s best team in the Howland/Dixon era, but can they silence their March demons and make it to Detroit for the Final Four?

Oklahoma is led by everyone’s All-American Blake Griffin, a double-double machine as well as a slew of good guards. The Sooners are one of college basketball’s most talented teams, but will they be able to overcome their relative lack of experience, and make a deep run toward a championship?

UConn is currently tied atop the Big East, and amazingly has yet to lose a road game, despite playing the college basketball’s toughest conference. But with the recent news that the Huskies have lost starting guard Jerome Dyson for the year, UConn will be short-handed heading into March. Is the injury enough to keep Calhoun and his team from winning their third National Championship in the last decade?