After a lackluster Elite Eight, the first two games of the Final Four exceeded all possible expectations.  And with a great ball-handling team set to take on a great pressing team, with the best offense in the nation set to play the best defense in the nation, the championship game just might live up to the hype too.

Louisville defeats Wichita St.

Somewhere there are Wichita St. fans that are heart-broken. But as a sports fan, I have to remind them of this. It will never be any more fun than this season. To return only 21% of your scoring, lose three players to injury in January, earn what everyone calls a horrible tournament draw against Pittsburgh and Gonzaga in the first two rounds, expectations couldn’t have been any lower. And to go from that to losing a nail-biter in the national semifinal, that is sports nirvana.

This is also why it is so wonderful that college basketball celebrates teams for making the Final Four. The NBA doesn’t celebrate coaches for making the Conference Finals. MLB doesn’t have a big ticker-tape celebration for reaching the Division Series. But when the Shockers fly back to Wichita St., they will have a big celebration. And they deserve it. The way they went down, the Shockers have nothing to hang their head about.

The previous teams seeded 9+ in the Final Four had lost by an average margin of 17 points. But Wichita St. did not go out without a fight. The Shockers went 26 minutes without turning the ball over against one of the top turnover forcing teams in the nation. They led 8-0, led by 12 in the second half, and even led 60-58 when it looked like it was slipping away. That last basket, with Louisville up 58-57 was truly magical. After it looked like Louisville had stolen the ball, Carl Hall fought for the ball on the floor, Cleanthony Early made a step-through floater “and one!” And that last 60-58 lead is a memory that can never be taken away.

But if Louisville was Goliath, they were the team that was impossible to cheer against. That is because Louisville truly represented what it means to be a team. If you thought based on his season-long PPG that it had to be the Russ Smith show, if you thought based on the run against Duke that it had to be the Peyton Siva show, Louisville showed that sometimes it takes a full roster to play for a national title.

The comeback started when walk-on Tim Henderson hit two huge threes. As the TV graphic said, he did not play in 13 games this year because Rick Pitino didn’t have minutes for him in the rotation. He scored 16 points in 25 games. And there he was scoring the two biggest threes any walk-on will ever hit.

Then there was the part where Luke Hancock took over. At one point he drove to the basket in transition and had his shot blocked. But the block careened out to a Louisville player, and they reset and got the ball back to Hancock. At this point, Hancock was mad. He wanted that lay-up. And for any normal player with a reputation as a stand-still three point gunner, what he did next would have been foolish. But Hancock wasn’t a traditional three-point gunner. He was a former lead-guard for George Mason (which include an NCAA tournament game-winner two years earlier.) And in that lead-guard role, Hancock learned to attack the basket late in games. And with the reset ending up in Hancock’s hands, he was not going to be denied. Hancock drove the lane, used the basket for protection, and got his driving lay-up.

Back-up forward Stephan Van Treese was key too. With the game tied at 58, Van Treese contested an in-bounds pass at half-court that allowed Russ Smith to pick up the loose ball and give Louisville a 60-58 lead.

Meanwhile Chane Behanan was there for a late tip in to make it 62-60 Louisville.

And there was Gorgui Dieng blocking a shot and causing a shot-clock violation with just 2:16 left.

The entire comeback was a team effort. (And even if he wasn’t key to the comeback, it is worth noting that back-up forward Montrezl Harrell kept Louisville in the game in the first half with his tip-ins.)

Last year’s Kentucky team was a great team because it was a wonderful compilation of supremely talented basketball players. But this year’s Louisville team is a team in the truest sense of the word. For Louisville, the sum was truly greater than the parts.

Michigan defeats Syracuse

At the end of the regular season, Jordan Morgan was returning from injury. And I remember Dan Dakich raving about Morgan’s play. Dakich noted that Morgan’s communication, range, and overall activity level was going to improve Michigan’s defense enough to make a run in the NCAA tournament. In many ways, the prediction did not work out. With Mitch McGary emerging, and John Beilein preferring to keep a perimeter oriented lineup on the floor, Morgan hasn’t seen enough playing time to improve Michigan’s defense. But with a trip to the championship game on the line and a two point lead, Morgan drew a charge that was the difference in the game.

Of course if you are Syracuse, you blame the officials. There was the play where Michigan should have been called for a charge. There was the play where Michael Carter-Williams was called for an illegal screen and fouled out. There was the lane violation. And then there was that last play where Brandon Triche, instead of going to the free throw line to tie the game, fouled out.

But the truth is, if you ask most Syracuse fans, this still wasn’t the most heart-breaking loss of the last 10 years. When you talk to the die-hards, the folks that watch this team every game, they all know the truth. This wasn’t the most talented Syracuse team by any stretch. On a neutral floor, most of them would pick last year’s Syracuse team to beat this year’s team easily. But even if this Syracuse team wasn’t the best, or even the most heart-breaking, it had something that can never be replaced. It had grit. This year’s Syracuse team fought for every inch of real estate in the paint. It never gave up defensively. It fought vigorously for offensive rebounds. And even if the refs kept this team from reaching the championship game, this post-season was an overwhelming surprise.

And if many of the key players graduate or declare for the draft, Syracuse fans can take heart in the performance of CJ Fair. Fair led all scorers in the game, but it was his play with 12:45 left in the second half that I thought was symbolic of the season for Syracuse. After the Orange missed a three pointer and McGary had secured a clear rebound, Fair snuck behind and stole the ball and got fouled. Syracuse was down 8 at the time, but Fair’s action basically signaled to his teammates that they weren’t giving up. And in 2013, that was the story of the Syracuse season. They could have given up in February when the offense wasn’t working, but instead they played their hearts out to the point where they were one referee call away.

Meanwhile, the story for Michigan was pretty clear. I liked how Kenny Smith put it at half-time. Everyone knows how to beat the Syracuse zone. Michigan was just the first team to do it. They got offensive rebounds, they got out in transition, and they made tough deep threes. The formula is simple, but Michigan was the first team to do it.

Final Notes

-Somewhere Florida fans were watching Nik Stauskas go 0-4 from 3 and cursing at their TVs.

-I liked when Clark Kellogg said Ron Baker was 20 of 23 from the free throw line in the tournament and those free throws “never hit the rim”. Really, the three misses were air-balls?

-At some point Steve Kerr said, “Trevor Cooney is a much better three point shooter than his numbers show. He has made only 26% of his long range shots this year.” I can understand that if you have lead guard who takes a lot of shots with the shot-clock winding down, or if you have a superstar who is constantly double-covered, that you can make arguments like this. But when a freshman keeps missing open jumpers, I don’t know how you can really argue with the numbers.

-Doug Gottlieb had his best diagram of the tournament at half-time of the Louisville vs Wichita St. game when he showed how Wichita St. used Gorgui Dieng’s preference to defend the paint against him. There are ways to negate a great shot-blocker, but it takes great execution.

-I truly believe it was a Louisville comeback, not a Wichita St. collapse. Looking back at the game-tape, the only play where I thought Wichita St. took the foot off the gas was when freshman Ron Baker passed up a wide-open three from the top of the key with a 9 point lead. Michigan on the other hand had a big collapse. They stopped being aggressive with the basketball with 4 minutes left, and it almost cost them the game.

It seems unlikely that Charles Barkely watches a single basketball game between November and February. And while Greg Anthony and Kenny Smith have their moments, both feel like NBA guys calling a college game. Both are complete professionals, but with Anthony calling Brooklyn Nets games this season, and Smith working Inside the NBA on TNT, neither is primarily focused on the college season.

That is why I was so excited when CBS hired Doug Gottlieb and planned to bring him in-studio starting in the Sweet Sixteen. While Gottlieb can rub a lot of people the wrong way by being extremely negative (think Billy Packer-lite), I can live with it. Because unlike the others, Gottlieb is passionate about college basketball. He follows it religiously from November to February, and he has an impeccable ability to recall college basketball trivia. Plus Gottlieb is not afraid to start and make an argument. In a room with Charles Barkley, Gottlieb’s ego is not too small to get lost.

Still, my initial impression was that four people is too many for a half-time show. At half-time of the Miami vs Marquette game, all four analysts rushed through their opinions, and I felt like I didn’t learn something from any of them. And throughout the course of the evening, Gottlieb was particularly bad. He felt like a kid who was trying to say too much to impress his new friends. On ESPN’s College Basketball Live, Gottlieb’s ability to drop random trivia made the show must-watch TV. But on a show like this, mentioning how Brandon Triche’s dad lost to Keith Smart’s Indiana team just seemed like too many words in too little space.

And Gottlieb seemed to have extremely poor chemistry with the others. He either didn’t react to what other folks said, or he reacted, but didn’t have enough time to make his point. Prior to the opening game, Greg Gumbel cut him off by laughing at him. It certainly wasn’t an auspicious debut.

Still, I think we saw at half-time of the Syracuse vs Indiana game that the four analysts all have something to offer. All four absolutely nailed key points about the Syracuse 12 point lead on Indiana.

Kenny Smith, “It isn’t so much about the zone, it is about Syracuse’s size. That is what is causing all those turnovers.”

Doug Gottlieb, “There isn’t anyone on Syracuse that Jordan Hulls can guard defensively, but Indiana needs him out there for his three point shooting.”

Greg Anthony, “The problem with the zone is that it makes someone else the point guard who isn’t used to being the point-guard.”

Charles Barkley, “As you see on that play right there, the Indiana players are just standing around. They have to make themselves available when Zeller has the ball at the top of the key.”

Ah, there is nothing like zone defense. Say what you will about Syracuse’s 2-3 zone, but everyone always has an opinion. On paper Indiana looked like the perfect zone busters. They had great versatile forwards to attack the top of the zone. They were great in transition which should have allowed Zeller to attack before the zone was even set. And they shot 40% on threes on the season, which meant that even if they settled for threes, that was still a good shot.

Unfortunately, that three point shooting wasn’t nearly as good as marketed. Realistically, most of that three point shooting came in a standard man-to-man offense. It came because Zeller drew double teams in the paint which led to wide open shooters. It came because Yogi Ferrell drove into the paint and collapsed the defense leading to open kickouts. Those same plays weren’t there against Syracuse. And when they were there, they collapsed quickly. As Kenny Smith noted, Indiana really wasn’t prepared for Syracuse’s size.

Most importantly, as Greg Anthony noted, Indiana had to depend on someone else to initiate the offense. Indiana flashed Cody Zeller, Christian Watford, and Victor Oladipo to the top of the free throw line. All three players seemed like plausible zone busters. But no one was comfortable enough passing and attacking the zone from that position.

A month ago, on the same Verizon Center floor where the Sweet Sixteen was held, a Georgetown team with Otto Porter at the top of the key shredded the Syracuse zone. And unable to create turnovers, Syracuse struggled scoring only 39 points in the game. At that point Syracuse hit rock bottom. An Elite Eight run seemed like a joke at that point.

But Cody Zeller, Christian Watford, and Victor Oladipo were no Otto Porter. And thus Indiana compiled 11 turnovers in the first 13 minutes of the game, lost the points off turnover battle 12-2 at the half, and built a double digit deficit that they could not overcome.

Georgetown dominated Syracuse this season because they had the right player to beat it. Indiana looked helpless against Syracuse. Georgetown lost to an up-and-down high flying Florida Gulf Coast team. But is there any doubt that Indiana would have beat Florida Gulf Coast by 20 points and scored 90 points in an explosive up-and-down game? In basketball, match-ups can be everything. And while it seemed on paper the Hoosiers were the right team to beat Syracuse, when it actually came down to personnel and size, the Hoosiers were the exact wrong team.

Final Note #1: The scary thing about being a super-athlete is that your athleticism can get you hurt. Baye Mousa Keita jumped up in the air to block a Zeller shot and Zeller ended up completely under-cutting him. There was no foul on Zeller, in fact Keita was the one who committed the foul, but Keita landed on the floor and his forehead was busted wide open. The scary thing is, I’ve seen this happen to at least two other Syracuse players this year. Sometimes players don’t realize how high they can leap.

Final Note #2: Sideline reporters are largely pointless, but Rachel Nichols gets credit for her questioning of Jim Boeheim. “Is your tone in the locker room going to be praising the team or criticizing what they did wrong?” On paper, this may seem silly, but it was a deceptively insightful question. Boeheim smiled, Verne Lundquist laughed, and Boeheim concluded that when you are leading, you should probably praise the team.

Ohio St. does it again

In the first half, Aaron Craft showed some of his elusiveness in taking the ball to the basket for a few key lay-ups. But it wasn’t necessarily good strategy. As TBS special announcer Jay Wright noted at half-time, you don’t want to challenge Mark Lyons to a game of street-ball. And with Craft taking it to the basket, Mark Lyons responded with a series of drives himself. As great a defender as Craft has been, with Craft in foul trouble, Lyons seemed un-guardable for much of the first half.

But here is the thing about the Buckeyes. People tend to think that because Ohio St. relies so much on DeShaun Thomas for scoring, that there are a bunch of scrubs at the other positions. But that isn’t true at all. Basically everyone in Ohio St.’s lineup is a former Top 100 recruit. These are athletic players. And Ohio St. came back and took the lead because Ohio St.’s wing players were relentless in taking the ball to the basket. Those drives resulted in a dominance of points-in-the-paint. And it resulted in Ohio St. going to the free throw line time and time again. With 3:30 left in the game, Ohio St. was an incredibly dominant 21 of 23 at the free throw line. While Arizona was missing wide-open threes, Ohio St.’s ability to get easier shots was the difference in the ball game.

Still, I’ve said before that I love when players go out at their best. And if Arizona senior Mark Lyons’ career had to end, I’m glad he got one last moment. His driving bucket (and one) to tie the game with 25 seconds left was vintage Lyons. He was the ultimate closer this year.

LaQuinton Ross nailed Ohio St.’s second buzzer-beating three of the tournament and the Buckeyes advanced, but Arizona has nothing to hang its head about in shame. And as the Arizona’s forwards begin to mature into dominant forces, Arizona will absolutely be back in the Sweet Sixteen or beyond next season.

Quick thoughts:

-Much like Ohio St., Marquette dominated Miami by getting more easy shots. But the news that Shane Larkin was sick and hadn’t slept the previous night, dampened some of the enthusiasm for the upset.

-Sadly most people had probably gone to bed by the time they showed him, but I hope people don’t forget the heartwarming story of La Salle guard Ramon Galloway’s father. His father is blind and still attends his son’s games in person. He either listens to a radio for the play-by-play or depends on a friend or relative to provide play-by-play for him. But he loves to attend in person for the thrill of the sound of the crowd and the sneakers on the floor. It is a heartwarming story and one of many for a La Salle team that probably didn’t get enough love for what they accomplished in this tournament. After VCU went First Four to Final Four, First Four to Sweet Sixteen seems rather pedestrian. But it is a feat that may not be accomplished anytime soon.

Expected Wins Field of 64

Once again I list the expected wins in the tournament according to the Pomeroy Rankings. Two of the teams with the Top 5 highest expectations fell Thursday.

While the NCAA Tournament has cachet all its own, one way of looking at the Tournament is through the lens of the NBA. While the lottery guys get plenty of buzz leading into the Tourney, I like to spend more time on the players on more middling teams for the first few days since it is less likely that their teams survive long enough to evaluate them further.

On that note, here is the day-by-day:

Thursday

Headline games:

Pittsburgh vs. Wichita State (1:40 PM Eastern)- This game makes the list primarily because of Steven Adams. The big man from New Zealand has not produced as much as many of us hoped during the season but has the chance to show his potential this weekend. The Shockers rebound well enough to challenge him and I am intrigued by Carl Hall.

Memphis vs. St. Mary’s (2:45 PM Eastern)- While Memphis has a slew of intriguing athletic question marks (Adonis Thomas, Joe Johnson and DJ Stephens are just three of them), St. Mary’s has Matthew Dellavedova. Matthew stands out as an unusual draft prospect because of his age (22) and subpar athleticism for his position but has the shooting stroke and basketball IQ to stick in the league longer than expected. We will learn a ton about everyone in this game. 

Other games to watch:

Syracuse vs. Montana (9:57 PM Eastern)- Michael Carter-Williams vs. Will Cherry. My bet is that one of them will massively help his draft stock in this game.

Oklahoma State vs. Oregon (4:40 PM Eastern)- Marcus Smart will have his hands full with future prospect Dominic Artis. We’ll see how Le’Bryan Nash handles the spotlight as well.

Michigan vs. South Dakota State (7:15 PM Eastern)- Senior sensation Nate Wolters gets the chance to show his value against a Michigan team full of potential NBA players (Trey Burke, Glenn Robinson III, and Tim Hardaway Jr among them).

UNLV vs. Cal (7:27 PM Eastern)- Anthony Bennett and Allen Crabbe will be the headliners but I am focused on how UNLV matches up on defense.

Friday

Headline game:

UCLA vs. Minnesota (9:57 PM Eastern)- After the injury to Jordan Adams, this could be our only chance to see lottery pick Shabazz Muhammad in the Tourney. Kyle Anderson, Trevor Mbakwe and Rodney Williams are three other likely pros worth keeping an eye on.

Other games to watch:

Wisconsin vs. Ole Miss (12:40 PM Eastern)- Marshall Henderson. That is all.

North Carolina vs. Villanova (7:20 PM Eastern)- Despite deeply disappointing this season, UNC has plenty of NBA talent in the form of James Michael McAdoo, Reggie Bullock and PJ Hariston. Each of those guys needs to make an impression over the next few weeks in order to rehabilitate their stock.

Creighton vs. Cincinnati (2:45 PM Eastern)- One of the best potential tests for Doug McDermott makes this one particularly fascinating.

San Diego State vs. Oklahoma (9:20 PM Eastern)- Jamaal Franklin has been underappreciated by the national college hoops media but has a chance to make his own statement on the opening weekend. If the Aztecs can get past Oklahoma, a potentially star-making meeting with Georgetown looms.