On Second Thought, Something Special In This Year's Tournament

Once again, March has come and gone—as well as a little bit of April—and we find ourselves finished with yet another NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.

The 2009 Tournament certainly had its standard share of excitement: Villanova’s thrilling last-second drive to beat Pittsburgh and advance to the Final Four; Arizona being this year’s annual number twelve seed to make it to the Sweet Sixteen; or Michigan State’s stunning beat-down of the Tournament’s number one over all seed, Louisville.

Just to name a few.

But there seems to be a general consensus that the Tournament this year lacked a little bit of the shock and awe excitement that has given these three weeks in March the reputation as the greatest time of the year in sports. So as I find myself standing back and reflecting on this Tournament, I can’t help but notice that the most glaring thing standing out to me, the one takeaway from this Tournament that I may never forget, has to do with that exact lack of excitement.

More specifically, it has to do with the University of North Carolina’s absolute dominance.

Before the season began, there was hardly a doubt amongst college basketball analysts as to who would win this year. And it wasn’t even a matter of where they would get lucky or what breaks they would need to come out on top. It was a foregone conclusion.

UNC was going to be the beast of Men’s College Basketball.

And sometime in early April, they will be cutting down the nets.

And they did. Last night.

So yes, all the analysts were correct. But UNC’s road to this point was no walk in the park. Plenty of times throughout the season they showed signs of weakness—signs no one had expected to see. And while they still managed to win the talented Atlantic Coast Conference’s regular season crown, they needed a few key victories near the end to do so.

And then they stumbled against a surging Florida State team in the ACC Tournament. Oh yeah, and their star point guard, Ty Lawson, was still banged up and uncertain how healthy he would be for the NCAA Tournament.

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