Final Four Underway: "They Were Who We Thought They Were"

Is your bracket all messed up and you stand no chance to win your office pool?   Shame on you...shame on me.

Okay, mine is not so hot either ( but I did have Duke and West Virginia, so I am okay) but in the reality if we had been paying attention, this final four should not have been so hard to predict.

Exhibit A:

·           Preseason 2010 Men's Basketball Poll: #2 Michigan State, #8 Duke, #9 West Virginia, #10 Butler. 

·           On March 14^th  #3 Duke, #5 West Virginia, #8 Butler, #12 Michigan State.

With these numbers in mind, we consistently had a #1, #2, #3 and #4 seed on our hands. Now you can see that these victors should have not been “that” hard to predict…at least so says the man with two teams still in play (I have Duke winning it all, so we will see how long my luck lasts).

Exhibit B:

·           Duke, Michigan State, West Virginia and to a lesser extent, Butler are great basketball programs.

Duke: One of the best basketball coaches in NCAA history, three great shooters (all averaging 17+/points per game) with NBA talent (Kyle Singler is a potential star), three senior starters and a big man to create havoc in the middle. 

Michigan State: One of the best basketball coaches in NCAA history, legacy of success in March.  In fact, when asked about his success in the Tourney Tom Izzo answered: “I love March”.   With six Final Four appearances, I cannot say I blame him.

Most preseason projections have the Spartans returning to the Final Four, largely in part to Kalin Lucas (out now) but the real difference was the improved play of Raymar Morgan and Delvon Roe.

West Virginia: A strong case could have been made (and was made) that this team should have been a number one seed.     West Virginia ended the year impressively with a good record (25-6) in a tough conference (Big East), top RPI (#4), strength of schedule that was number two in the nation and they won their conference tournament.    They also made their case versus the “big boys” in D-I, with a win-loss performance of 4-4 vs. RPI top 25, 3-1 vs. top 26-50 and 7-1 vs. top 51-75.

Butler: Brad Stevens had his entire team returning this year. This is not a mid-major lineup and Butler is now developing NBA talent which is a key indicator of Mid March success.   Butler has now been a player on the national scene for more than a decade.   Time to give these Bulldogs their due including in your future brackets.

Exhibit 3

·           Where are the big boys?

Many of the big, traditional powers were down this year.   This list included UCLA, Connecticut, Arizona, Indiana and defending national champion North Carolina, marking the first time since 1966 that all five were out of the tournament in the same season.  

This left the path a little easier for those within the tourney that did not have to face some on the traditional talent on the court and walking the sidelines and drawing up plays.

In the clever words of Dennis Green, yes in fact, they were who we thought they were…and we let them get away! .   It should be no shock, no Cinderella story, no fluke that that Duke, West Virginia, Michigan State and Butler got this far.  

After all, Tom Izzo loves March, Bob Huggins loves celebrating (beer), CBS loves Duke (ratings!) and Butler loves home (Indy, site of the Final Four), it should have been a no brainer to foresee.

Shame on you…

Shame on me.

As always, for more, go to www.BuyTheClippers.com .