Not your ordinary Final Four

Even in the unpredictable, anything-goes world of March Madness, this is a Final Four nobody saw coming.

Kentucky, Connecticut, Butler and Virginia Commonwealth -- the improbable, the implausible, the unthinkable and the downright unimaginable.

In one game in Houston on Saturday, No. 4 seed Kentucky will play No. 3 Connecticut -- not a completely absurd thought as a Final Four matchup, though hardly a popular pick given their up-and-down regular seasons.

In the other game, it will be No. 11 Virginia Commonwealth against No. 8 Butler -- the team that was almost universally panned when its name was called on Selection Sunday against the defending national runner-up from a 4,500-student campus whose amazing success story had supposedly run its course.

"It never gets old," Bulldogs senior Matt Howard said.

Nor does the NCAA Tournament, the three-week office pool that places the so-called experts on even footing with those who fill out brackets because they like a team's colors or its mascot.

Anything goes. Anyone can win.

And never has that been more true than this year.

Four teams with a combined 37 losses.

Four teams whose combined seeding equals 26, breaking the record of 22 in 2000.

Not a single No. 1 seed for only the third time since seeding began in 1979 and, according to STATS LLC., the first time that no 1 or 2 seed will be there.

ESPN, which sponsors one of the country's biggest bracket tournaments, said that out of 5.9 million entries, only two had this foursome making its way to Houston.

Kentucky is the new favorite in Las Vegas, at 8-5. VCU is listed at 7-1 -- the longshot in the field, but still quite a bit better than 2500-1, which is where the Rams were listed at the start of the season.

"I think what it does as much as anything, it just puts a spin on the NCAA Tournament," said Kansas coach Bill Self after his top-seeded team lost 71-61 to VCU. "It's wild. ... Because seeds are so overrated. It's about matchups. And their players could play for us any day."

VCU (28-11) got up early on Kansas on Sunday and never looked back, an upset winner in a tournament that's all about underdogs.

"Our guys have done a phenomenal job of putting all the doubters aside, putting all the people that didn't believe in us aside and going out and doing their job," VCU coach Shaka Smart said.

The Rams are the third No. 11 seed to make the Final Four and the first since George Mason in 2006, also of the Colonial Athletic Association. But the Rams are the first that will need to win seven games -- not the usual six -- to win the title. They were one of the last at-large teams to make the newfangled 68-team field. They played in the new "First Four" -- an extra round that was added as part of the NCAA's new $10.8 billion TV deal.

Now they're in the Final Four.

They'll play Butler (27-9), which slumped through big chunks of this season, a somewhat predictable result after what was supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime trip to the Final Four last season, played a scant six miles from their Indianapolis campus.

This year, the destination is Reliant Stadium -- 1,036 miles away. The Bulldogs are once again proving that all it takes is good players -- not a conference, a big school or gobs of money -- to compete on the biggest stage in college sports.

Though UConn and Kentucky each struggled at times this season, they've had Final Four pedigrees for years (decades when it comes to the Wildcats) and they lived up to them this month.

Connecticut was 9-9 in the Big East this season but won an unprecedented five games in five days in the conference tournament to win its first big trophy of March. The big question was whether the Huskies, led by one of the nation's best players in Kemba Walker, would have enough energy to keep things going in the NCAA.

Short answer: Yes.