Final Four 2015: Best Potential Matchups for National Semifinals

The Sweet 16 is set to get underway on Thursday. By late Friday evening, the Elite Eight will be in place. By the end of the weekend, the college basketball world will know which teams will make up the Final Four.

No matter which teams advance to the national semifinals, there will be great interest in the final weekend of the college basketball season. There are two potential matchups that would make for the most exciting and competitive Final Four games possible.

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Kentucky Wildcats vs. Arizona Wildcats

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Can any team in the nation beat the Kentucky Wildcats? That's a question that the West Virginia Mountaineers hope to emphatically answer in the Sweet 16. Their heart and efforts might be in the right place, but the Wildcats are too deep and athletic for West Virginia. 

Anything can happen in college basketball, but it would be a real shock to see the Mountaineers pull the upset on the tournament's No. 1 overall seed. 

What might not be as big of a shock is a Kentucky loss to the Arizona Wildcats in the national semifinal. High school prep star and nephew of the Memphis Grizzlies' Vince Carter, Victor Dukes, insists this is the matchup the hoops world needs.

Barring injury to key personnel, Kentucky would still come in as the favorites, but Arizona is extraordinarily well-coached by Sean Miller and has a bevy of athletes to compete with Kentucky.

It doesn't go 12 men deep like Kentucky, but only five players can play for a team at once. That said, Arizona can put an impressive lineup on the floor. It starts with defense, and that's an area where both teams excel. Both teams hold opponents to less than 60 points per game and 40 percent shooting.

Arizona has an edge in three-point shooting. It shoots 36.2 percent as a team compared to 34.7 for Kentucky. While most of the other pertinent categories (turnovers, rebounding and free-throw shooting) are close, Kentucky has the edge in all of them.

Still, in the NCAA tournament, it only takes one bad game in one of the aforementioned areas to create vulnerability for an upset. If Kentucky and Arizona meet, and the nation's No. 1 slips, Miller's group is the one team capable of making it pay.

Duke Blue Devils vs. North Carolina State Wolfpack

Rubber games late in the NCAA tournament are awesome. If the Duke Blue Devils and the North Carolina State Wolfpack make it out their respective regions, that's what we will have in one of the national semifinals.

On Jan. 11, the Wolfpack handed Duke its first loss of the season when they prevailed 87-75. The Blue Devils' Jahlil Okafor had 23 points and 12 rebounds, and Quinn Cook had 18 points, but they didn't get any help from their teammates. 

As a team, Duke shot 36.9 percent from the field. The Wolfpack were blazing hot from the field. N.C. State made 62.5 percent of its threes in that game. The rematch came in the ACC tournament, and Duke got its revenge.

The hot-shooting shoe was on the other foot, as the Blue Devils made 56.6 percent of their shots. The Wolfpack still out rebounded Duke 34-28, but it wasn't enough to offset their cold shooting (35.7 percent from the field, 27.8 from three and 61.1 from the line) and the Blue Devils marksmanship. Duke won it easily 77-53.

What would happen in the third meeting? It would be great to find out.

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