Sweet 16: Antonio Barton, Memphis

Antonio Barton heard the whispers and read the comments. The 6-foot-2, 170-pound point guard -- some people said and wrote -- was just riding older brother Will Barton’s coattails to a high-major basketball scholarship. “It was just like rumors on the internet,” Antonio Barton said. “I would read it. [They said] that I would be a good practice player, or I was just a throw-in for my brother. Those type of things.” It took all of one game at Memphis for Barton to show how foolish those anonymous commenters were in their dismissal of him. In Barton’s first career regular-season game, the 2009 Lake Clifton graduate scored a game-high 17 points, in addition to contributing five steals, four assists and three rebounds in leading the Tigers to a 104-40 win over Centenary. That game was the first of many in which Barton proved that he not only belonged at a big-time basketball school, but that he was one of the most promising freshman point guards in the game. On the season, ...