NCAA Tournament Final Four: Go with VCU and Kentucky Starting Upperclassmen

In the rumble tumble of the Final Four, seniors and juniors win. Sure, you have the occasional missteps by teams that should have won. But the odds say that the teams with more upperclassmen in starting roles win.

This year, amazingly enough, the upperclassmen starters are on the VCU Rams and Kentucky Wildcats. The Butler Bulldogs and the Connecticut Huskies have fewer upperclassmen.

You cannot always use this guide. Obviously, there are upsets. So too there are situations when the ages of the players do not reflect their seniority.

For example, John Wall last year took an extra year in school. He was 19 when he played as a freshman. In some instances, due to transfers and sitting out, the real age and to a degree the experience of the player are beyond the player's seniority in the classroom. With Connecticut, the foreign players are often older. They have one from Nigeria and two from Germany on their roster this year.

Yet with college experience comes greater maturity—and with maturity come better decisions and choices on the court and off.

In my view, the bettors will in the end favor Connecticut and Butler. In every sense, they are probably right. Both are better teams, and both may have better coaches.

Yet both Kentucky and VCU have the winning trait in common: more upperclassmen starting. So here are some risky predictions.

Leaving aside the talent factor, both these teams also make sense for reasons other than their upperclassmen.

VCU is arguably the hottest team in the country. It had to win one more game to get to the Big Dance than any other team in history. It will need to dig deeper into its will to advance further.

They are also the oldest. For VCU, this is the end no matter what happens. Few, if any, will be big-time pros. They are playing now for perhaps the last time in their careers—and they know it.

While some well-known oddsmakers claim that this is the result of "us against them" coaching, there is little doubt that there is no need for further motivation. If there is some motivation, all VCU needs to do is look at the odds.

But coaching is indeed the hotspot here. VCU's Shaka Smart is the best coach in college basketball today. His decision to take a technical foul was masterful. His belittling himself and building his players up not only brings good karma for King Shaka, it also makes it a proper mix for each matchup.

While Butler's Brad Stevens is very good indeed, his younger team and he are not quite up to King Shaka. Look for VCU to get to the final game with little difficulty in a shocker.

For Connecticut, its great roll comes to an end against a slightly older Kentucky team. Connecticut's Jim Calhoun has put together a reasonable facsimile of an international basketball team playing international rules. They shoot long, stand tall and are occasionally physical.

Yet their speed is more important in half-court defense and offense, and they are neither as quick nor as technically proficient as Kentucky. Look for Kentucky to win in a close one. After all, John Calipari is due. Unless you consider this really his first time to the Final Four since his UMass and Memphis appearances were vacated and they therefore never happened.

And now the final game.

It is tempting to go with Kentucky again. Only fools and Cinderella believers will go with VCU.

Yet somehow the string will continue, and VCU will emerge victorious. Look for this again to be a coaching duel with King Shaka still on top at the end despite Calipari's superior experience. Look at this game as continuing payback for the past, or whatever you want. Some strange calls or other events will affect this game. In the end you will have to admit that Smart's Zulu past played more of a role in this game than you would have ever believed.

In my heart, I believe that the other teams will win each game and that I will be 0-3 in predictions by next Tuesday. But my brain says otherwise. It is chancy. It is a very huge risk to bet on a coach and team that have never been to the Final Four in their history.

Yet the bettors and most brackets are dust by this point. They have chosen wrong in big games more often than not. When one of the best brackets picked after the first week was by five-year-old Henry Hasselbeck, you know this was one screwed-up tournament from the fans' perspective.

Picking VCU to win it all is just as screwed-up. Could have been done by the same five-year-old. Sure, many of the teams lost to better and higher-ranked teams. Sure, there has never been a No. 11 seed that has won the tournament.

But Smart will succeed—and his point guard, Joey Rodriguez, will be the MVP. You will see.

There is always a first time.