Final Four Review

Another day of March (April), another day of Madness. A lot of times when you get to the final weekend of any sports season, the hype outweighs the actual games. Saturday's NCAA semifinals was not like that. There were major story lines heading in: Can the kids from Butler keep this Cinderella streak going? Can Tom Izzo keep his undermanned team chugging along? Would Duke's finesse or West Virginia's brute win out? Which of these looks nothing like the other: Coach K, Bob Huggins, Tom Izzo, Brad Stevens? So how did it play out? Let's get it.

First game featured #5 Michigan State vs #5 Butler, yet somehow this was billed as David vs. Goliath. Two teams with very similar styles, both play defense and rebound really well. As expected, the game was a tough, grind it out thriller. As not expected, Butler pulled off yet another victory over a school most thought they had no business being in the gym with. The Bulldogs' free throw shooting was really sketch down the stretch, I thought it was going to do them in but they managed to hold off the Spartans and advance to the National Championship game. That is right, Butler will be playing for all of the marbles. Interesting nugget here: Butler has held every opponent to under 60 points in the tournament. Impressive. Think about it.

Game two was the main event. CBS was so happy to have Duke on in prime time. How do I know this? Between Duke being given the biggest cakewalk of a bracket draw I can ever remember (Kansas was the #1 overall seed but had Ohio St and Georgetown in their bracket. Duke was the #3 overall seed and got Villanova and Baylor. Please.) and the refs handing them every possible call to date, especially in the Baylor game, you did not need to be a genius to see what was going on here. CBS and the NCAA needed Duke's brand name in the Final Four or else they would be hurting. Like I have said before, everyone loves a Cinderella story until they have to play in the next game.

Anyway, so here we are, 9pm on a Saturday night with #1 Duke vs. #2 West Virginia. The contrast between the two programs, the two coaches, the two schools is why I love sports. Coach K runs a tight, clean ship, appears to really care about his players graduating and going on to be "men" more than anything else. Huggins has the rep of not graduating his kids and doing anything possible to win basketball games. More on this later. The big X's and O's question in this one was how would Duke match up against WVU's vaunted 1-3-1 zone that has wreaked havoc on every opponent in their path in the tourney, especially Kentucky the week before who just could not solve it. Know what Duke did? They offensive rebounded like nothing I have ever seen, then kicked out to wide open jump shooters and just drilled three after three after three. Every possession was like Groundhog Day. WVU would play great defense, force Duke into a bad shot, and then let Duke beat them on the boards for a board-kick-three-swish. WVU still hung around though, they did their own thang on the offensive end to stay alive. There were a handful of moments in the 2nd half where all the Mountaineers needed was one stop and everything would have changed. They would usually force a miss, but then (guess what?), the Devils would get the board and capitalize. In the end, Duke was too much and won a game where WVU just said "Uncle" at the end.

With about four minutes left and WVU hanging on by a thread, their best player and team leader suffered a horrible knee injury. He was on the floor writhing in pain. Somehow, this produced one of the most heartfelt moments of the tourney. Coach Huggins, ya know the one who is a thug and doesn't care about his players, was down on all fours draped over his player like two soldiers in a battlefield. I am not a sappy guy, but it was a really touching moment. It turns out Da'Sean Butler tore his ACL. Any NBA dreams of his will have to be put on hold. Tough break for what seems like a great kid. I hope he gets better stat.

Overall, solid day of hoops. It is just so weird to think that Butler will play in the championship game though. Duke-Butler, review coming soon.


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