Final Four 2010: Previewing Butler, West Virginia, Michigan St. and Duke

I never do this, so bear with me.

I never write articles that are over 3500 words long and I’m shocked that I stuck with it long enough to finish it.

As for the 2010 NCAA Tournament, now that we have watched and dissected every single one of the 61 games since Arkansas Pine-Bluff defeated Winthrop in the play-in game on March 16th I will ask…

In the end, are any of us really shocked?

This tournament is going too defined by its upsets and appalling free falls; the team who was supposed to win it all was knocked out too early to matter, the team who most likely will disband for the NBA just lost Saturday night to a bunch of dreamy Mountaineers.

Kansas is gone. Syracuse is gone. Kentucky is gone. Have a nice trip back home, Ohio State, Kansas State, Villanova.

Entering Saturday, only two teams remained from the top overall eight seeds and they, for the sake of respectability, thankfully moved on and will have to knock one or another out of the tournament in the Final Four.

Last year’s Final Four involved, a two seeded Michigan State, a one seeded Connecticut and another one seeded North Carolina. The other team was the three seeded Villanova.

But we can go even further than that.

The Elite Eight last year also included Pittsburg (another one seed), Oklahoma (a two seed), Missouri (a three seed) and Louisville (the last one seed).

This year’s Elite Eight only comprised of two one seeds, a pair of two seeds, a single three seed, two five seeds and a “volunteer” six seed.

Overall, hasn’t this made for a better tournament?

Of course it has.

With that said, let’s take a look at each team who made it into the final four, their coach, and their most impactful players.

Midwest Region Champions: Michigan State Spartans

Michigan State’s total margin of victory this tournament has been 13 points in four games.

Seven of those came in their “blowout” against Northern Iowa.

According to ESPN, since the field expanded to 64 in 1985, no team has ever won its first four games by a smaller margin.

But, what else can you expect from a team receiving little to no support from three of its more important in-season players: Kalin Lucas, Delvon Roe, and Chris Allen?

What else can you expect from Tom Izzo, perhaps one of the greatest coaches in NCAA history?

He has led a team who won three of their four games on a dubious lane violation, a last second shot, and a questionable foul with 1.8 seconds remaining.

It seems like they have been given an amazing amount of luck due to that fact that they were supposedly ruined thanks to an “Achilles Heel”; star guard Kalin Lucas’ injury.

Apparently, they ignored their own and exposed Tennessee’s; they allowed them to make only one three pointer in the second half, a game that ended at 70-69.

The game was so close, so incredibly tense that it deserves mention; neither team ever led by double digits, and, also according to ESPN, for 39 minutes and 34 seconds, it wasn’t more than a two-possession game either way. The tension was unrelenting. On a couple of occasions in the heat of the battle, Izzo even caught himself saying, "God, this is a hell of a game."

Quite a phrase from the coach who, thanks to the win Sunday afternoon, now has had the most final four appearances in Big Ten history.

But it’s quite true. The Spartans have enjoyed an incredible run after having been seemingly written off at every stage of the tournament.

Perhaps now people are paying attention to Raymar Morgan, Korie Lucious, Draymond Green, and Durrell Summers and have stopped saying, “Well, they’ll lose, there’s no Kalin Lucas to lead them. There’s no one, at all.”

Impact Players

It’s true, there is no one.

There are four, or five even.

But if you really wanted to pinpoint someone you have to take a look at Durrell Summers.

Here’s this kid who has all the talent in the world, who at best show’s flashes of brilliance and at worst shows us a level of inconsistency that is most likely the true reason for Tom Izzo’s continued hair loss.

If you take a look at his game log over the course of this past year you have to shake your head.

In the regular season, Summers had scored more than 15 points in seven games but put up seven or fewer in nine others. Although marred by inconsistency, but he was still the one guy besides Lucas who could get his shot off almost any time he wanted to.

Yet for the fourth straight time this tournament Summers’ punched in a memorable game where he showed off his athleticism and big play ability.

He scored 14 against New Mexico State, 26 against Maryland, 19 against Northern Iowa, and 21 against Tennessee Sunday afternoon.

When they needed it most, he has performed.

But he isn’t the only one.

They have arguably the smartest player in the game in Draymond Green. He’s the NCAA sixth man of the year.

Korie Lucious, who replaced Lucas in the lineup, has nine steals in the last two games. He is perhaps the most vital player in Michigan States attempt to advance once again.

Raymar Morgan, other than disappearing in the Northern Iowa game, has averaged over 13 points per game, and has had 25 rebounds.

But if you look at it hard enough, you really can thank one man, just one…

Head Coach

Tom Izzo.

I don’t really wish to write much about Izzo. I have followed his teams for years, but I know there are plenty of other people out there who know much more about him and his coaching style than I do.

In short, I don’t want to make a fool out of myself and write a big deep paragraph about how he is a coaching genius (even though he is).

No, I think I’ll just leave it to Pat Forde at ESPN who wrote my most favorite line of the tournament so far.

It fits in well here and goes something like this:

“That's just what Tom Izzo teams seem to do in March. Players like Durrell Summers morph into heroes at just the right time. Players like Draymond Green make the great pass at the perfect moment. And a flawed team just keeps on winning the close ones.”

Izzo and Company will go on to face…

West Region Champions: Butler Bulldogs

Let’s make this clear.

Butler doesn’t fit into Cinderella’s shoe. We know this because they tried it on and it promptly broke into a million little glass pieces.

A lot of people are going to write and read about this though (nodding their heads in understanding as they do so). They will refer to Butler as a Hoosiers team, the little engine that could.

All of this probably makes Butler head coach, Brad Stevens laugh.

Because he knows that Butler isn’t Cinderella. He knows Butler is the Wolf. Butler isn’t Hoosiers (and he isn’t Gene Hackman). Butler is freaking Jaws.

He knows this and he is bent on making sure that at the end of this, we all know it too.

They have the coach.

They have the impact player.

They have the physical team to do this and we all wonder (myself included) why we didn’t see this before.

Well it probably has to do with the fact that Butler has an enrollment of just 4,200 students, a home gymnasium called Hinkle Fieldhouse, and a coach who was born a year after Jim Boeheim began coaching at Syracuse.

Well, now everyone is realizing the so-called mid-major school, is actually that bully during recess who is short and skinny but packs a huge wallop and beats everyone up.

“Underdog? Butler’s nowhere near that,” said Kansas State forward Jamar Samuels. “They’re a great team, and they have one of the best players in the country.”

Of course, he did say that after Butler beat his team.

Impact Players

Who is that player?

His name is Gordon Hayward, and he’s 6-foot-9.

“He plays guard,” Jamar Samuels continued to say. “A 6-9 guard, man. That’s something you don’t see.”

Butler has at least one future NBA player in Hayward, who along with his size boasts an impressive combination of able shooting range, versatility and athleticism.

But is Hayward actually the best player Butler has to offer? They possibly have two other NBA prospects in 6-8 forward Matt Howard and 6-3 guard Shelvin Mack (are you paying attention Kentucky?).

Like John Wall of the aforementioned Kentucky, Hayward is getting most of the attention on the team because he very well may turn pro after this season. That’s the thing about basketball “bullies” like the 2009-10 Butler Bulldogs and supposed great Kentucky Wildcats – they have players who are good enough to enter the NBA Draft as underclassmen.

Where does that leave us?

Well for Butler it leaves them facing Michigan State in the Final Four next weekend.

For us, we just wonder how this team passed everyone by?

As a freshmen Hayward he shot 44.8 percent on 3-pointers. This season he slumped to 29 percent from behind the arc, and that’s possibly the reason he’s gone under the radar this tournament, he is still boasting that percentage. Entering the Final Four he is shooting a low 5 for17.

So who is leading Butler’s beyond the arc scoring?

Enter Shelvin Mack.

He is shooting (forgetting the 1-10 debacle against Syracuse) 12-18 behind the line in the tournament with nearly a half dozen boards to boot.

Making it all possible, are the defensive gems in Ronald Nored and Willie Veasley, they are locking their proverbial “game” when it matters most and getting the ball back to Mack and Hayward and Howard.

Head Coach

Brad Stevens.

He is 33 and looks 23, but he is the quintessential model of Butler basketball; looks are very, very deceiving.

And Stevens is going to be a coaching giant.

He ranks fourth all-time for wins by a first-year coach (30), second all-time after two years (56), and first after three years (87 and counting).

He could be like Mark Few of Gonzaga. Few has turned down bigger schools and bigger money to stay in Spokane where he is emerging as a legend. That’s Stevens’ destiny at Butler, if he stays. He will be the next Jim Boeheim or Coach K. Again, that’s if he stays.

He has poise, dedication, and he has earned the respect of all of his players. He doesn’t look like he’ll kill them if they lose (Frank Martin), nor does he turn the color of his tie (Bruce Pearl) when something dramatic happens.

Brad Stevens looks like he belongs in a calculus classroom but behaves as if he runs it.

He didn’t cobble its roster together from castoffs and overlooked prospects – Butler isn’t Kent State from the 2002 Elite Eight or George Mason from the 2006 Final Four, teams that were led by seniors deep into the NCAA tournament.

Butler’s “best player” (the Horizon League Player of the Year), is Hayward, is a sophomore. Mack, a first-team all-league pick is another sophomore. Matt Howard is a junior. Butler’s starting point guard, Ronald Nored, is a sophomore. The Bulldogs start just one senior, small forward Willie Veasley. Their first two players off the bench are juniors Zach Hahn and Shawn Vanzant.

Butler is 32-4 and riding a 24-game winning streak.

And that, in this whirlwind of a tournament, could be the reason that they do move on to the Championship game.

East Region Champions: West Virginia

Kentucky might have had the lottery picks, but they did not have the Mazzulla.

I knew that when I predicted Kentucky to win I would be wrong.

A little reverse psychology perhaps? I laugh. Hardly. I had absolutely no idea how the game would turn out when it began. I knew that to win, W.V. had to frustrate DeMarcus Cousins to the point where he gave up.

Well, “Operation Pestering DeMarcus” worked thanks to Joe Mazzulla’s plan of annoying him more than he could ever imagine.

My favorite quote out of this whole thing (courtesy of Jameson Fleming’s latest article) came when Mazzulla said, "At one point he [DeMarcus] said are you serious? [I said] you are going to half to punch me in the face to get me off of you. That's what Huggs asked me to do to win the game."

That type of performance was exactly what the Mountaineers needed to oust Kentucky, and Mazzulla didn’t disappoint.

The end result? West Virginia moves on to face the team that many believed they should have swapped seeds with when the brackets were announced.

Da’Sean Butler, who played with a sore right hand, was a big part of Kentucky's problem. He made four of West Virginia's 10 3-pointers.

The Mountaineers led 28-26 at halftime in one of the quirkiest 20 minutes of shooting in tournament history. They made eight of 15 3-pointers—and went 0 for 16 on 2s. He didn’t make any from inside, nor from mid-range, not from anywhere except beyond the arc.

Odd, just like this tournament.

Impact Players

Butler is by far the best player on the Mountaineers. It is his team, he’s the senior, the de facto leader, and Bob Huggins’ go to guy.

But, the best thing about when you have a player breakout in the Elite Eight game as Joe Mazzulla did against Kentucky, you can just add him to the other impact guys that are already there.

And that gives that team an increased advantage so deep in a tournament.

Mazzulla scored a career high 17 points against Kentucky and Butler has averaged that many per game this tournament.

Big man, Devin Ebanks is another impact player that can make a big difference. The Mountaineers have only lost once when Ebanks has pulled down at least ten total rebounds in a game and that was in a triple OT loss against Pittsburgh on the 12th of February.

Add in Kevin Jones, another big man, who has shot 57 percent from behind the arc in the tournament.

Mazzulla literally sticks to his man like glue and Butler has the ability to make shots like he did against Georgetown in the Big East Final every single game.

The Mountaineers are peaking exactly when they need to.

Head Coach

It's been a turbulent time for Huggins since his previous Final Four appearance with Cincinnati back in 1992 and because of it, it’s an interesting story to tell.

On the day he was hired he told his alma mater was back to win a national championship.

But there is no way he could’ve imagined at the start of the tournament that the key piece that led his team to Indianapolis was a little known young man named Joe Mazzulla.

But that’s the truth.

And you have to credit Huggins for giving him the shot do perform.

For the first time since Jerry West led them there in 1959, The Mountaineers are in the Final Four. That 51-year drought is all but forgotten in the minds of West Virginia fans and alum. Their team is back.

And Huggins is two wins away from delivering on the promise he made in 2007.

"I talked to them about trying to be special," Huggins said. "If we can somehow find a way to win a couple more, that will be really special."

Huggins and his Big East tournament champions have won 10 straight games and controlled top-seeded Kentucky for almost all 40 minutes in a 73-66 victory in the East Regional final Saturday night.

"The wonderful thing about these guys is they never doubt," Huggins said.

Huggins has always coached in his own unique way. But due to a string of player arrests, a heart attack in 2002, and his drunken-driving arrest in 2004, he was forced him out in 2005. He took a season off from coaching and then returned for one season at Kansas State before joining the Mountaineers in 2007.

On game days he wears a warm-up jacket instead of the traditional suit. He usually places the palm of his hand on chin and appears bored during news conferences. He is hilarious at times given his deadpan delivery, and he allows players to relax due to "being around my effervescent personality all the time."

He made all the right moves against a Wildcats team that will soon have its roster dispersed throughout the NBA. Oh what will Calipari do?

Again it’s thanks to Huggins who gave seldom-used Joe Mazzulla his first start of the season because Darryl "Truck" Bryant broke his foot this week during practice.

"Everything just went in my favor," Huggins said.

Huggins reminded the team of his promise to win a national championship and not settle for the Final Four. The Mountaineers got the message.

"That's just the attitude that Huggs has instilled in," Mazzulla said. "We have the mindset that we have 80 minutes left to really do something special."

South Region Champions: Duke Blue Devils

I’ll admit it. Finally.

Duke impressed me.

Not that it matters too much what I think, but after seeing them leave the first half down by three points (which is incidentally the first time they entered the second half on the losing end of things this tournament) and come back to tie it up within fifteen seconds of the second, I have to say that I was a little awed.

The Blue Devils showed incredible poise and resilience against a determined Baylor team and their hometown fans (Baylor plays its home games merely 3 ½ hours away from Reliant Stadium in Houston).

Criticized by many, including myself, for having the easiest path to the Final Four, Duke was forced to overcome an incredible Baylor team, who, led by Tweety Carter, Ekpe Udoh, and LaceDarius Dunn, dominated the game for most of the first half and into the second.

But no thanks to Kyle Singler and his 0-15 from, well anywhere from the floor, the Blue Devils are rejoicing over Nolan Smith and his 29 points, over Jon Scheyer’s 20, and Lance Thomas’s 9 rebounds in 19 minutes.

They controlled the last five minutes of the game and gave Coach K his 11th Final Four appearance and the opportunity to win his fourth National Championship.

Impact Players

Forgiving that Kyle Singler scored only five free throws in the game against Baylor, he is arguably the team’s best player and has been the model of consistency all year long.

Before Sunday’s game he was averaging 21 points and over 7.5 rebounds in the tournament.

In contrast, Jon Scheyer who, once again is performing when needed the most, is averaging (disregarding a seven point performance against California) 17 points and 37.5 minutes per game. During the 2009-2010 season he has played less than 35 minutes only seven times.

And don’t forget Nolan Smith, who with 29 against Baylor, put up a career high in scoring when the Blue Devils needed it most. Again no thanks to Kyle Singler.

As Dick Vital will surely warn us, waving his hands animatedly no doubt, that another key player for his Blue Devils is big man seven footer, Brian Zoubeck, who is the defensive minded rebounder and is now finally healthy, prepared to make his presence known.

Those four players, focused on their mental toughness and offensive rebounding ability, will make it very hard for West Virginia to overcome them next Saturday.

Head Coach

Much like with Tom Izzo, I do not wish to delve too deeply into Mike Krzyzewski’s coaching style, I’m not an expert on him and many of you know more than I do, but for those who do not know…know this; much like Izzo, the big reason Duke has made it this far so many times, is because of Coach K.

We have learned that his players are serious and can step it up, especially against Baylor, and how much credence are you to give to Coach K?

About as much as you give to Izzo. All that you can.

One final question.

At 63, does Coach K use Just for Men or just a no-name brand?

Final Prediction

I must apologize.

I’m didn’t do any more predicting, if you haven’t noticed by now.

It’s just gotten too personal. There are too many good storylines to go around; Butler and their unexpected advancement, Michigan State and their battle through injuries, West Virginia and their triumph over Kentucky, Duke who’s back in the Final Four for the first time since 2004.

Oh what the hell.

On April 3rd at 6:07 PM I’m officially picking Michigan State over Butler.

On April 3rd at 8:47 PM I’m officially picking West Virginia over Duke.

Then I’m picking West Virginia over Michigan State.

Because I originally picked West Virginia winning it all, but to be honest, I threw all eight top seeds into a hat and pulled their name out.

Because isn’t that exactly how this tournament has gone?

Here’s to next weekend.