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.

-Great intro video by CBS tonight noting that 7 of the 8 teams in action had won a national title. The exception of course was Florida Gulf Coast.

-Eventually every team gets their heart-broken. Only one team cuts the nets down in the end. And if Florida Gulf Coast had to go down, I thought Friday’s game was the perfect way to go out. They gave the fans some early excitement when they took a 15-4 lead. There was a moment where almost everyone watching said, “Is it possible? Can it happen?” And then they still fought hard until late in the game. With 3:11 left, there was Florida Gulf Coast’s Chase Fieler giving us one more put-back dunk to remember him by.

In the end, Florida just had too much firepower. When it was 24-22, they showed a graphic that Florida was 8 of 27 from the floor and FGCU was 8 of 15 from the floor. At that point I knew FGCU’s run was going to end. When a team gets nearly twice as many shots, they almost always win. Florida’s offensive rebounding and forced turnovers eventually proved too much. But it was an incredibly fun run.

-Kevin Ware was injured early last season for Louisville. The Louisville guard joined the team mid-season, and to say he was ineffective would be an understatement. He turned the ball over on 45% of the possessions he used, shot 29%, didn’t make a three, and basically looked physically unprepared for college basketball.  This year he was healthy from the start of the year and he started to gain Rick Pitino’s trust. But the truth is, if it wasn’t for foul trouble, he was only seeing spot-duty on the floor. And spot-duty is tough because you cannot always get into a rhythm. While he dished 4 assists and scored 8 points in the OT loss to Notre Dame, Ware spent most of February invisible to ineffective.  Between February 14^th and March 15^th, he only posted a game ORtg above 100 twice.

But then he hit a couple of big threes against Syracuse in the Big East tournament championship game. Then he dished 5 assists in the NCAA tournament against Colorado St. And suddenly Ware looked to be gaining confidence. And with Peyton Siva in foul trouble early on Friday night, Ware was ready. He attacked the rim, got to the free throw line, and scored 9 critical first half points for Louisville. Instead of foul-trouble putting the team in a tailspin as it might have in late January, Ware was ready to run-and-gun with Oregon. And in one of the more fast-paced and up-and-down games of the tournament, Louisville had the depth to dominate the Ducks.

And that’s the true beauty of a Rick Pitino team. It is extremely versatile. Want to play up-and-down, they have the depth to do that. Want to play in the half-court, they have the penetrators and big men to work effectively. Want to play zone and try to slow them down, Louisville can go big with freshman Montrezl Harrell providing a surprisingly effective distributor at the top of the key. Louisville hasn’t always been perfect on offense this year. But they have been extremely adaptable, and that is why they remain the favorite to win it all.

-You can never fault much strategy when Michigan St. plays Duke. Both teams have practiced the right stuff and studied the film. But I thought Michigan St.’s decision making was shockingly imperfect late in the game. From the odd fouls after Duke had already run 20 seconds off the shot clock, to Adreian Payne’s shot selection, it wasn’t a vintage day.

What do I mean by Adreian Payne’s shot selection? Sure, he can make threes. And he did make one early. But what was he thinking putting up 5 from long-range? His three point attempt with Michigan St. down 10 late in the game seemed to end any comeback momentum the Spartans had.

Payne and his fellow Juniors now face a huge challenge. Every four year Michigan St. player under Tom Izzo has made the Final Four. And Michigan St.’s juniors have come up short three times. They only have one more season to make it happen.

Game of the Tournament

Michigan’s win over Kansas had a little bit of everything.

-If you like pressure shots, there were none bigger than the game-tying three Trey Burke hit at the end of regulation. But don’t sleep on the offensive rebound and diving reverse lay-up that Glen Robinson hit moments earlier either.

-If you like a little bad blood to build a rivalry, Kansas guard Elijah Johnson was called for a flagrant foul for punching Michigan forward Mitch McGary in the groin.

-If you like high scoring games, both teams shot the ball extremely well. Kansas had an eFG% of 59.1%, which was the highest anyone had scored against the Wolverines all year. Meanwhile, Michigan had an eFG% of 54.9%, which was the 3^rd highest percentage against the Jayhawks this season.

-If you like great fundamental basketball, Kansas was relentless taking the ball to the basket and getting good shots. They scored the first 22 points of the game in the paint, and Michigan seemingly had no answer for the inside attack.

-But if you like unorthodox strategy, this game had that too. John Beilein refused to change his lineup and adjust to Kansas’ relentless inside push. Instead of going with two big forwards to slow Kansas down, Beilein challenged his guys to fight harder for positioning and cut-off penetration. He refused to adjust, and eventually his strategy started working. Michigan got hot with some outside shooting and turnovers late, and the small-ball lineup prevailed against a Kansas team that seemed to be playing flawless basketball.

-If you love redemption, there was Kansas guard Ben McLemore. After going 2 for 14 in the first two rounds of the tournament, and starting 0-3 on Friday, McLemore finally broke out. He hit a big three in the corner when Michigan tried to play zone. And he even banked in a three in the first half that had everyone (including his coach) chuckling.

-If you love big comebacks, Michigan was down 14, but ended the game on a 22-8 run to send the game into OT.

-If you enjoy the Schadenfreude of crucial mistakes, there was Elijah Johnson at the end of OT, with a nice drive for a possible game-tying basket, making a wild pass out of the post that essentially ensured the loss.

-And if you love to see future NBA stars, Trey Burke played like a superstar. His three at the end of regulation, three to take the lead in OT, and long-two point jumper in OT were simply cold-blooded. He scored all 23 of his points in the second half, after his coach asked him to be more aggressive and stop deferring. And in a tournament seemingly devoid of future pros, Burke made his case for the top of the draft on Friday.

Expected Wins in the Field of 64

Because Ken Pomeroy’s formula loves Florida, Michigan looks like a decided under-dog, but I actually view the stats another way. I see six teams with a legitimate chance to win it all, and two teams (Marquette and Wichita St.) who only have a slim chance of three more wins. Officially the Golden Eagles and Shockers have 2% odds of running the table. The rest of the teams are all plausible national champs.

The Pac-12 has been suffering through a long dark period. The Big Ten has been dominant (at least in the pre-conference schedule) for the last few years. Should we expect a change this year? Is the Pac-12’s slump over? Is the Big Ten’s boom about to come to an end? Let’s take a quick look at some basic roster data and see if we can uncover any trends.

Part of predicting the season is noting the number of elite high school prospects on each roster. Not only are these players more likely to play well as freshmen, but they are also more likely to breakout later in their career. Recall, for example, Michael Snaer of Florida St. Snaer was a former Top 20 recruit, and while it took him three seasons, he broke out in a big way in 2011-12. After adding up the numbers…

- The Big East has the most former RSCI Top 100 prospects on rosters heading into the season with 58.

- But the Big East has more teams, and the Big East has only 3.9 elite recruits per team. The ACC has the most former Top 100 recruits per team with 4.6 per team.

- But James McAdoo is the only former Top 10 prospect in the ACC this season. That seems like an unprecedented lack of super-elite talent for the conference. If you want super elite talent, you probably want to watch the SEC, assuming everyone is declared academically eligible. John Calipari never lets us down on the recruiting trail.

- The SEC, however, is only welcoming ten Top 100 freshmen this year as a whole. Even the Big Ten, the land of typically poor recruiting, is welcoming more Top 100 freshmen than the SEC this season. And yes, the slumping Pac-12 brings in quite a few elite recruits this year.

The next table isn’t really roster data, but it does reflect some of my preliminary projections about playing time.

- The ACC is going to be the youngest conference in the nation this year, according to my projections.

- The Big East has a startlingly low number of key seniors on rosters this year.

- As usual, the MWC and A10 have more mature rosters. They lose fewer players to the NBA and that helps the top MWC and A10 teams compete, even without a plethora of blue chip talent.

The Pac-12 is getting older in a hurry, thanks in no small part to an influx of transfers. Note that your transfer numbers may vary slightly. I’m excluding transfer walk-ons and a few JUCOs who seem unlikely to play in the next table.

The transfer table doesn’t mean the Pac-12 has suddenly become the conference of transfers. This is all a natural consequence of recent league history. The Pac-12 teams have struggled the last few years making those teams particularly attractive places for transfers to matriculate. If you want to transfer and PLAY in an elite league, you would have chosen the Pac-12 too.  On the other hand, the Big Ten has been on an upswing and few coaches have needed to dip into the JUCO ranks as a quick fix. Deverell Biggs of Nebraska is currently the only incoming JUCO player projected for the Big Ten this year.

Overall, the Pac-12 was a depleted league, but it is adding a number of impact freshmen and key transfers this year. The days of the league failing to field a Top 25 team are over. As for the Big Ten, the jury is still out. The teams at the top still have plenty of talent, but programs like Purdue could be in for a bit of a slip without an influx of can’t miss players coming in.

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