The most-anticipated Final Four I can remember, previous to this one, was in 2008. (FYI, it wasn’t just because my beloved Jayhawks had FINALLY avoided the ridiculous upset bug and won their regional.)
All four top seeds won their regions that year—the first and only time since the field was expanded to 64 teams in 1985 that that happened. The result was four teams with at least 35 wins on the season, going at it on college basketball’s final weekend. To sweeten the deal, three of them—North Carolina, Kansas, and UCLA—were among the few elite, blue-blood programs, with Derrick Rose and Memphis rounding out the foursome.
Even though Kansas got revenge on Roy Williams and Carolina in a heated semifinals matchup, they won going away by 18, while Memphis beat the Bruins by 15. The title game, though, was back-and-forth with Kansas forcing overtime on a miracle Mario Chalmers three-pointer at the buzzer and then winning it in the extra period.
This year, with Kentucky looking at 40–0, Michigan State looking to play Cinderella, and top teams Wisconsin and Duke looking to stop both of them, it’s shaping up to be the best we’ve seen. First up, the semifinals on Saturday. Onto my picks:
Duke (33–4) over Michigan State (27–11): This is not your typical 7-seed versus 1-seed matchup. That much is clear.
The Spartans have an ugly-looking 11 losses on their résumé, but five were overtime defeats (they played eight overtime games), which count the same, of course, but are noteworthy nonetheless. Had they scored one more point in regulation in just three of those contests, they could easily have been a 3-seed with a 30–8 record.
In any case, 9 out of 11 of their losses, in fact, were by 10 points or fewer, and one of them was to Duke way back in November at the Champions Classic.
Let’s get one thing straight about the rematch: No matter how much Michigan State may be underrated with their close losses and how well they’ve played together in this tournament, they still don’t have an answer for Jahlil Okafor—only Kentucky (and maybe Wisconsin) can counter-punch down low with Duke.
