Filed Under » NCAAB

With his college career at an end and the NBA Draft around the corner, BYU legend Jimmer Fredette admits he is feeling the pressure to become the first white, American basketball superstar since Larry Bird.

"We live in a little bit of a bubble in Provo, but we're not completely separated from the rest of the world," said Fredette. "I hear the talk. I know that, right or wrong, some people are really pulling for me because of the color of my skin. But there are good players in the NBA D-League. I don't know if I can go in there and just dominate."

Fredette says he knows he will be drafted and fully intends to try to forge a career in the regular NBA, but believes his best shot to be a game-changer is in the D-League.

"All the hopes and expectations placed on me does not change the fact that I am a 6-foot-2 shooting guard who is a gunner and can't play defense at all. I mean, even a little bit," said Fredette. "At the absolute max of my potential I could maybe be like J.J. Redick in the NBA. That's far short of the hopes people have for me. But have me playing teams like the Fort Wayne Mad Ants and the Erie Bayhawks every night? That's pretty much the same quality as the Mountain West Conference. I might be able to tear it up."

The Duke Blue Devils were knocked out of the NCAA Tournament in the Sweet 16 on Thursday night, bringing the 2011 tournament to an early — but wildly successful — end.

"I'd like to thank all of the teams who participated in this year's effort to have Duke's season end hilariously in defeat on national television, or — as it's better known: the NCAA Tournament," said NCAA president Mark Emmert. "I think this will go down as one of the greatest tournaments of all-time. I mean, they got killed. It was great!"

Emmert also extended a special mention to the Arizona Wildcats for "putting a stake through the heart of the great satan."

Arizona head coach Sean Miller said his team felt like champions.

"This is what any basketball player dreams about growing up: destroying Duke in the NCAA Tournament, repeatedly dunking on their heads and just humiliating them in front of the whole nation," said Miller. "My guys are on top of the world. Because Duke is on the bottom."

It's only been 12 months since Ali Farokhmanesh led Northern Iowa into the Sweet 16 with clutch 3-point shooting and an upset over No. 2 seed Kansas. But Farokhmanesh says it feels like an eternity ago.

"Last March I was getting the finest tail in all of Northern Iowa," says Farokhmanesh. "From farmer's daughters to farmer's sisters to farmer's wives. There was even a farmer's mother. Thankfully, he was a younger farmer."

But today, while the 2011 Sweet 16 is set to open, Farokhmanesh finds himself far removed from being the king of the upper-third of the state of Iowa. Undrafted by the NBA, the 6-foot is scraping by playing for SAM Massagno Basket of the Swiss league.

"Honestly, I chose to play for the Swiss league because I hoped Swiss milk maids would be as into me as Iowa milk maids," says Farokhmanesh. "But the girls here never heard of me. They never heard of the NCAA Tournament or Northern Iowa. To them I'm just the little guy with the weird name who sits on the bench."