Brent Wright, center, and teammates rub coach Billy Donovan's head after Florida defeated Oklahoma State to advance to the Final Four.
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Player to watch
Joseph Forte. We can hardly keep our eyes off him. He seems to score effortlessly, rising up for that cushiony-soft jumper or slicing through the lane to throw up a feathery floater. He's increased his scoring in each of four tourney games, from 13 to 17 to 22 to 28. He might go for 40 if Carolina makes the final.
Random thought
Bill Guthridge had already been to two Final Fours -- one as a player at Kansas State, the other as a K-State assistant coach -- before Billy Donovan was born.
Stock Rising
Julius Peppers. What a find by North Carolina -- without the burly freshman, the Tar Heels' already thin bench would be non-existent. Think the Carolina athletic department allows him and Ronald Curry to play on the basketball team's intramural football squad?
Bracket buster
Oh, we give up.
User Message of the Day
Excellent game, and a near comeback. Glad to see my Heels win. There was way too much smack
talk on this and the UNC board. I trust the crow will be tasty for those posters.
-- phlegm
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Daily Word: Flawed Final Four? Not by our count
Michigan State, Florida and North Carolina were all consensus
preseason top-10 teams, each gaining strong support to make the Final Four. The
only team that wasn't on the radar screen was Wisconsin.
But, for some reason, we're conditioned to think that this Final
Four is flawed because these teams aren't perfect.
The teams' records, though, reflect a different mindset: tough scheduling during a time when programs have to rebuild quicker because of defections to the NBA, transfers and an
overall equality among most of the major conferences.
For more of Andy Katz's Daily Word, click here.
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QUESTION OF THE DAY
Who will win the NCAA Tournament? |
ESPN.com's Andy Katz
Michigan State. I'm sticking with my pick from the beginning. The Spartans are the only team I have left from my Final Four picks. I had Michigan State winning the national title because of their point guard (Mateen Cleaves), hot hand on the wing (Morris Peterson), toughness on the backboards (Andre
Hutson), versatility (Charlie Bell) and depth (Al Anagonye, Jason Richardson, Mike Chappel). I can't go against them now.
ESPN.com's Greg Collins
Can I take the field? There have been plenty of times when the favored team didn't win, so picking someone other than Michigan State isn't a bad choice. I'm going with North Carolina -- the Tar Heels have the requisite hot hand in Joseph Forte and are finally playing the sort of defense needed to be an elite team. So what if it only took 35 games. Plus the Tar Heels proved against Tulsa they can handle tough pressure, so getting by Florida might not be as difficult as you'd think.
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TOURNAMENT CHALLENGE
The Madness is under way. This year's pool is larger than ever, with 590,000 brackets submitted. Click here to check your brackets. Some interesting tidbits:
Only one entry out of 590,000 correctly picked all Final Four teams -- Kristin Helgeson of Smyrna, Ga. You can find a link to her bracket on the front page of the Tournament Challenge section.
Florida was the fourth-favorite choice to go to the Final Four out of the East Region. The fifth-seeded Gators won the East on two percent of all brackets.
The South? Forget about it. Neither North Carolina nor Tulsa were in the top five choices. The Golden Hurricane made the Final Four on .25 percent of all brackets, while Carolina was on just .22 percent.
Nine of the top 10 picks to win the national title are gone, but the top choice still remains. Michigan State was selected as champion on 29.21 percent of the brackets.
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ESPN BRACKETS
Bracket fever has hit ESPN! We have our own Tournament Challenge group, and you can check it out. First, you'll need to log on to the Challenge main page with your entry, and then check out the Featured Group Great Minds of Bristol U. to see our predictions for the NCAA Tournament. Jay Bilas still holds a commanding 50-point led over Andy Katz. |
Cinderella Watch
Neither Florida nor North Carolina qualify as a Cinderella in our book, so we're sticking with Wisconsin. The Badgers didn't have a loaded roster or an easy schedule, but that didn't stop them from making their first Final Four in 59 years. On the other hand, North Carolina, Michigan State and Florida all went to at least one Final Four in the 1990s.
But that wasn't the biggest historical fact to this year's Final Four field. Check these out:
• The 40 combined losses is the highest in the history of the Final Four.
• When you add the four teams' seeds -- a No. 1 (Michigan State), a No. 5 (Florida) and two No. 8s (North Carolina and Wisconsin) -- you get 22, the highest total since the NCAA Tournament started seeding teams in 1979. This year broke 1980's total of 21 (No. 2 Louisville, No. 5 Iowa, No. 6 Purdue, No. 8 UCLA).
• The lowest seed total for a Final Four came in 1993, when three No. 1s (Michigan, North Carolina and Kentucky) and a No. 2 (Kansas) made up the field.
• North Carolina joined Wisconsin as the only 13-loss teams ever to make the Final Four. Should the two meet in the title game, the combined 26 losses would be 23 more than last year's title game between Duke (37-1) and Connecticut (33-2).
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