On Monday the men’s college basketball season will be over and Kansas, Memphis, UCLA and UNC will be crowned the champion. I have read some people that dislike that all the #1 seeds made it to the Final Four because it takes away from the randomness of the tournament. I think that because the tournament has been so boring this year, outside of Davidson and Western Kentucky, that this is exactly what the tournament needed to give it some life. These four teams have been the best teams all year and on paper these 3 games in San Antonio should be pretty exciting.
The marquee game is going to be Kansas v. UNC and I am sure that most of the media hype is going to be about Roy Williams and how he used to coach at Kansas. I know that some Kansas fans are still stinging the way Roy left back in 2003 to take the UNC job but do you really blame him? The guy got his start at Carolina and was an assistant to Dean Smith for years before he left for Kansas. There was also enough of a gap between the time Dean Smith left in 1997 to the time Williams took over in 2003 that he would not be compared to his mentor. UNC was also coming off a disastrous season and KU after losing the 2003 title game to Carmelo Anthony and Syracuse was losing a number of their top players so the timing was right for Williams. Since coming to UNC, Williams has restored them to national prominence and finally won the title in 2005 after coming close a number of times at Kansas. As a huge Duke fan those last couple of sentences were pretty tough to write but you cannot argue with what he has done since he got to Chapel Hill.
Bill Self is Williams’s replacement at Kansas and this is his first Final Four after narrowly missing out a couple of times first at Illinois and then last year with Kansas. The look of relief on Self’s face after Davidson missed the last shot was amusing to me but I also felt glad for the guy. I only hope that now that the Final Four monkey is off his back his team will play loose and take it to UNC. I think KU has more athletes than UNC but I think it comes down to how the game is called. If Hansbrough is able to get KU’s frontline in foul trouble then KU is in big trouble against the Heels.
Speaking of Hansbrough for anyone watching the game on Saturday do your self a favor and watch him.
Not because he is good but because he gets away with anything on the court. When he makes his moves to the basket he shuffles his feet more than Grandpa Simpson. When he is not traveling he lowers his shoulder and bulls his way to the basket. On defense notice how easily a guy who is solid at 6′9, 245 gets knocked over by 6 foot guard. You hear how Duke gets all the calls but watching Hansbrough play I cannot remember a player for Duke who ever benefited from the refs the way Hansbrough has his entire 6 years at UNC. At least it seems like 6 years.
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