The quest to open eyes of NCAA suits about their short-sighted views and mistaken opinions when it comes to staging championship play in Las Vegas doesn’t soon appear to be changing.
Basketball
Connecticut is a national champion for the fourth time because when it comes to the final of each season, this almost always holds up: The side that executes those things thought inessential during a season is the one cutting down nets at its end.
When the Wildcats of Kentucky start a lineup of all freshmen against Connecticut in tonight’s national championship game at AT&T Stadium, it will be the first time in a final since the Fab Five of Michigan did so in losing to Duke in 1992.
At this point, it seems to be a daily routine. Brush your teeth, eat lunch, get annoyed by bad drivers on the way to work, and, of course, watch Aaron Harrison hit a huge 3-pointer as Kentucky wins a thriller.
ARLINGTON, Texas
This is the new normal. The way college basketball will look more often than not each March.
Three years ago, Connecticut won the national championship. Shabazz Napier was a freshman on that team. So too was Roscoe Smith.
Cinderella stayed home. Forget that Kentucky is an 8 seed and Connecticut a 7. Of those teams that have advanced to the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament, all are major programs and three have won multiple national championships.
It’s easy to paint John Calipari as a con artist. He’s slick and perceived as shady, a reputation earned through great recruiting. The Kentucky coach runs an NBA farm team on a college campus.
In retrospect, some events are truly unbelievable, such as an airplane disappearing without a trace. It went against the odds, but Shabazz Napier knocking out Michigan State is not that hard to believe.
In this high-stakes poker game, Billy Donovan is holding a real cool hand. The Florida coach has four senior starters and a sophomore who’s a hot shooter.
The final nail was pounded into the coffin as most assumed it would be all season. Thirty-six games later, San Diego State couldn’t overcome its offensive woes against an elite opponent.
Hank Finkel might not have been a star in the NBA, but he was a great player at Dayton, which has made it to this year’s Sweet 16. Plus, he had a name that is hard to forget.
Think about evolution. It’s a pretty broad term. It can refer to a variety of changes, to the uplifting of mountains and the wandering of riverbeds and the creation of a new species. To how Bo Ryan coaches basketball.
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