Seniors get the cover of the media guide. Freshmen get discovered and then discussed all season long -- especially this season -- with ACC freshmen leading the rejuvenation of North Carolina, the rebuilding of Duke and the return of Georgia Tech.

Sophomores? They get diddly squat.

Until now. Here at ESPN.com we celebrate the overlooked, the downtrodden. The sophomores.

Georgia Tech shooting guard B.J. Elder is one such sophomore. If you've never heard of B.J. Elder, shame on you. Call yourself a college basketball fan? B.J. Elder is one of the premier talents in the ACC, an NBA-looking player who is a sturdy 6-foot-4, 218 pounds with glorious touch from 3-point range, explosive finishing ability and enough ball skills to back up starting point guard Jarrett Jack.

	B.J. Elder averages 17.2 points, 3.2 rebounds and 2.5 assists. Shoots 53.8 percent on 3-pointers for GaTech ... and is overlooked.

But Elder is a sophomore, and at Georgia Tech, the story is not sophomores. Sophomores account for three of Georgia Tech's top five scorers and three of its top four rebounders, but Chris Bosh is not a sophomore, now is he? Bosh is a freshman, and he is the reason people seem to think the Jackets are back in the national picture again after going 15-16 last season.

To his credit, the 6-10 Bosh is an exceptional freshman - averaging 15.1 points and 10.9 rebounds per game. Jack also is a freshman, and he's not bad, either - averaging 9.6 points, 6.4 assists and 4.1 rebounds. Together, they have helped aim Georgia Tech (5-3) toward the upper reaches of the ACC.

But about Elder ...

Dude averages 17.2 points, 3.2 rebounds and 2.5 assists. Shoots 53.8 percent on three-pointers. And is overlooked.

Not that he cares a great deal.

"I knew (Bosh and Jack) were going to come in and play a big part in helping us win," Elder says. "And they've done it. Whatever attention they get, they've earned it."

That seems to be the sentiment across the ACC. At Duke, sophomore guard Daniel Ewing relishes the challenge of competing with freshman J.J. Redick for playing time in games, saying the competition is making both players better. At Wake Forest, sophomore Taron Downey is sharing the ball with freshman Justin Gray in a twin-point guard offense.

At North Carolina, sophomore Jawad Williams doesn't seem threatened by the emergence of not one, not two, but three freshmen as perhaps the best three players on the team. Williams talks of point guard Raymond Felton, shooting guard Rashad McCants and power forward Sean May like a starving man talks of Christmas dinner.

"We needed them," Williams says. "We needed them bad, and look what they're doing for us."

What those UNC freshmen have done is combine with sophomores Williams, Melvin Scott and Jackie Manuel to give the Tar Heels a makeover following last season's 8-20 pimple patch.

"Jawad has been awesome with it," says UNC coach Matt Doherty. "He talks about wanting to win. Would he rather be 8-20 (again) and be the top dog ... or a Top 25 team. Jawad is very unselfish."

A similar story in the Big East, meanwhile, was happening to Hakim Warrick, who heard about Carmelo Anthony before he saw him, which was bad. Because when he saw him on the Syracuse campus, Warrick knew right away all that talk about Anthony couldn't be true. Could it?

At 6-foot-8, 230 pounds, Anthony looked like a tight end. No way did he look like someone who could play the point, and shoot 3-pointers, and slither through cracks to explode to the rim.

"They told me how he played," Warrick says. "I looked at him, and his body doesn't fit his game. He's too big to have that kind of a game -- but he does. He's got it. It was obvious he was special."

So special, Anthony had become the face of the Orangemen before playing in his first game. After seven games, Anthony remains the team's headliner. He averages 24.7 points, 10.1 rebounds and three assists.

But if Anthony is the team's soul, sophomores like Warrick are Orangemen's guts. Power forward Warrick averaged 14.7 points and nine rebounds. Sophomore center Craig Forth chips in four points and 4.3 rebounds. Wing Josh Pace, another soph, adds 6.1 points, 3.6 rebounds and 3.6 assists. That trio combined for 21 points, 21 rebounds and seven assists and just two turnovers in 74 minutes of the Orangemen's 92-65 trouncing of Georgia Tech.

Still, freshmen are all the rage in college basketball -- at Syracuse, and beyond. Warrick gets it.

"I can see why it's happening," he says. "They're doing a great job. Look at how well Carmelo is going, and look at North Carolina and Florida -- all around. They're getting a lot of attention, but they've earned it. I'm not worrying about it. I'm worried about getting better and make it to the (NCAA) Tournament. If I get overlooked, I get overlooked. It's not important to me."

Games of the Week

Indiana at Temple Saturday Welcome home, Owls. A monstrous road trip ends, and now all Temple has to do is find a way to beat the Hoosiers. Nice schedule. Georgetown at Virginia Saturday This is a nice rivalry, a good game that needs to be played every year. Dayton at Duke Sunday Mike Krzyzewski scheduled this game to give his team a taste of the kind of upset-minded opponent - seeded somewhere between seventh and 12th - it could face in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Temple at Villanova Tuesday Chuck the win-loss records out the window. Big Five games are always cool.

Speaking of Sophomores
La Salle sophomore Mike Cleaves is a combination guard in the classic sense -- too small to play the wing, not creative enough to be the point, but too good to sit the bench. Last season he averaged 11.7 points and 2.5 assists.

So what do the Explorers do? They bring in two freshman guards this season -- a pure point guard, Jermaine Thomas, and a sterling shooting guard, Gary Neal.

Where does that leave Cleaves, the combination guard, the sophomore? It leaves him in a pretty good position, come to think of it.

"Teams haven't been playing me as hard this season because of them," Cleaves says of the freshmen. "I saw it against Cincinnati really clear. Guys were playing the freshmen kind of hard and letting me get into my thing. I think it's going to work out very well for all of us."

La Salle already looks much improved over last season, when the Explorers went 15-17. Although they started just 3-3 this season, two of those losses came to Cincinnati and Villanova by a combined six points.

Although Cleaves' playing time is down nearly five minutes per game from last season, his scoring remains roughly the same at 11.2 points per game. Neal and Thomas lead the team in scoring at 18.8 and 14.8 points per game, respectively, but Cleaves enjoys playing the role of older brother to his talented younger siblings.

"They get a lot of talk because nobody knew who they were before now, and they're making a name for themselves," Cleaves says. "But I'm still a leader to them. They follow me."

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