Four Point Play Dec. 27

3 Most Important Results from Tonight

Illinois 81, Minnesota 72 (2OT) – Illinois desperately needed this after getting drilled by UNLV and falling short in a comeback attempt against Missouri. It almost blew it to a Minnesota teams that has adapted well after the injury to Trevor Mbakwe behind a greatly improved Ralph Sampson III. Both teams should be fine in the long run.

Notre Dame 72, Pittsburgh 59 – Uh oh for Pittsburgh. The Panthers haven't had a great non-conference run and losing to Notre Dame to start Big East play won't help. As for Notre Dame, this win might start the climb out of the hole the Irish dug for itself in non-conference play.

Wisconsin 64, Nebraska 40 – Wisconsin is really good. Previously 8-3 Nebraska is 8-4 and obviously not ready for primetime.

Worst Loss from Tonight

St. John's 91, Providence 67 – St. John's is not good this season. The win moved the Red Storm to 7-5. Providence was thought to be good, but nobody knew because its strong record was countered with a weak schedule. I guess we now know which way the Friars are going.

3 Biggest Games of Tomorrow

Syracuse vs Seton Hall – Seton Hall is one of the surprises of the season so far. Now, on the road, we get to see how legit the Pirates are.

Baylor vs Mississippi St. - Baylor continues its pre-Big 12 insanity tour with a game against top 15 SEC power Mississippi St. The Bears should win (Miss St. is overrated in the top 15) and carry a truckload of momentum into Big 12 play.

Michigan St. vs Indiana – Michigan St. has rebounded well from getting beat by North Carolina and Duke to start the season. Now, the Spartans get to test Indiana at home, the first really good team to get that chance (sorry NC State). I think the Spartans will pass with flying colors, leaving Indiana to doubt how it got to where it is.

Final Thought on the night in College Basketball

The RPI is a mess right now. I know we aren't supposed to evaluate these things until later, but there is no way Northern Iowa is a top 5 team or Long Beach is a top 15 team (though those teams are very good and a threat to win a game in the NCAA Tournament if given that opportunity). With that known, we need an alternative to the RPI. What that is, I don't know, but I do know the RPI is a flawed system, at best.

NCAA Tournament Full Review

By now we all know that UConn beat Butler in one of the ugliest games in tournament history. Despite the awful ending, the tournament was good and these are the things and games I care to remember.

Best Game – Butler 71, Pittsburgh 70 (Round 3)

Throw out the ridiculous ending that everyone remembers because of the mind-numbing stupidity of some the plays and remember that this game had great defense and even better shot-making being displayed all game long by both Butler and Pitt. This game was good enough that I switched to it and left the San Diego St.-Temple double overtime game on my computer with no sound. Considering this blog generally covers the Mountain West, that is quite a feat.

Honorable Mentions – Duke 73, Michigan 71 (Round 3); North Carolina 86, Washington 83 (Round 3); Connecticut 65, Arizona 63 (Elite 8); Florida 83, BYU 74 (2OT) (Sweet 16); Morehead St. 61, Louisville 61 (Round 2)

Worst Game (Non-Championship Game Edition) – Kansas 77, Richmond 57 (Sweet 16) and North Carolina 81, Marquette 63 (Sweet 16)

I'm taking twin games here as they were on at the same time and were both savage beatings from the moment they started. Both Richmond and Marquette looked like totally overmatched teams that had taken advantage of good draws to get to that point and had no real chance, which they were. Marquette had pulled a round one upset and saw conference rival Syracuse in round two taking some of the usual 3 vs 11 advantage away while Richmond had beaten annual upset victim Vanderbilt and then lucked out to see a 13 seed awaiting in the next round.

Dis-honorable Mentions – BYU 89, Gonzaga 67 (Round 3); Florida St. 71, Notre Dame 57 (Round 3); Michigan 75, Tennessee 45 (Round 2); Clemson 70, UAB 52 (First Four); Cincinnati 78, Missouri 63 (Round 2)

Biggest Surprise (Non-VCU/Butler Edition) – Arizona to the Elite 8

The Wildcats were a revelation in this tournament behind their star player, Derrick Williams. They struggled with Memphis in round one winning by two before upsetting Texas, a team many thought should have been seeded higher. Then they steamrolled Duke in the Sweet 16, a totally shocking development considering the quality (or lack thereof) in the Pac-10 this season before nearly beating UConn too. Had they made the shot to beat UConn, we would likely be looking at Arizona as the national champs right now since I don't think Kentucky would have beaten them and the champ was almost certainly coming from the non-mid-major side of the bracket.

Honorable Mention – Kentucky (Final Four as a 4-seed), Florida St. (Sweet 16 and should have been Elite 8 as a 10-seed), BYU (Sweet 16 without Davies and overtime against Florida, just like last year though with a different result)

Biggest Disappointment – Kansas

When are we going to learn? Of course the last time people like me wrote something like that with this team, they won the next year (2008). The Jayhawks had the draw open for them all the way to the title game. All they had to do was beat a 16, 9, 12, 11 and 8 and they would have played for the title. Of course they failed because Kansas, when they do fail, generally does no in spectacular fashion against a team that really has no business on the court with them (see Northern Iowa last year, Bucknell a few years ago, Bradley a few years ago, Rhode Island in the late 90s, UTEP in the early 90s) and this year's loss to VCU is no exception and another to put in the pantheon of Kansas failures against overmatched non-power conference squads. Note that only the 2008 championship has avoided that pratfall recently and it wasn't for a lack of trying against Steph Curry and Davidson that year.

Dis-honorable Mentions – Louisville (upset by Morehead St.), Ohio St. (upset by Kentucky in Sweet 16), UAB (ugh), Duke (just got crushed like no top seed that early in recent memory), Pitt (yes it was excruciating, but there is no excuse after all these years of flops)

All-Tournament Team

G – Kemba Walker, UConn, Player of the Tournament

G – Jeremy Lamb, UConn

G – Shelvin Mack, Butler

F – Derrick Williams, Arizona

F – Matt Howard, Butler

Walker and Lamb go without saying. Walker was the leader in every sense for UConn. Lamb was huge throughout the tournament and its no coincidence that the awful offensive first half in the championship game came with him on the bench in foul trouble. Mack and Howard were the stars for Butler's run and their performances in the game before the final more than earn them a spot on this team. Williams was the most dominant player while he was around in the tournament. He single-handedly kept Arizona in the game against Duke until his teammates woke up and then finished the Blue Devils off with a couple of huge second half dunks. He also was the man on a team that exceeded expectations by going to the Elite 8 and made the block that beat Memphis at the end of the game back on the second day of the tournament.

NCAA Tournament Regional Weekend Review

There were numerous coaching blunders – In fact, there were so many that it is hard to go in depth. Florida St. not getting a shot at the end, Florida's botched attempts from deep against Butler, Bill Self not calling timeouts while getting blitzed in the first half against VCU, and BYU abandoning its offense for a three-point shootout in overtime against Florida. All of these were major coaching issues and it cost those teams, big-time.

Arizona's misses against UConn were perfectly fine – In the vein of what happened in all of those other situations, Arizona got the ball to its best player and gave him the opportunity to win it. He didn't but that happens to the best players. Credit Sean Miller for making sure his best player was the guy making the decisions at the end even though those decisions didn't work out.

The team that should be kicking itself most right now is Florida – The Gators had Butler seemingly beat a couple of times and it didn't matter because of some bad execution and the biggest defensive strength the team has suddenly becoming a weakness (that would be not fouling, Vernon Macklin's foul out was the first by any Gator all season). In addition to having Butler on the ropes, they had the biggest talent advantage of any of the Elite 8 losers. Even Kansas was closer to VCU that Florida to Butler.

VCU seriously underachieved during the season – If I were a major conference athletic director, I would have some serious hesitations about hiring Shaka Smart right now as my head coach. He has done an admirable and incredible job since the CAA Tournament began, but his team was up and down all season despite a very talented, veteran roster. In fact, his guards and wing players are as good or better talent wise that Kansas. This is a team that shouldn't have been on the bubble in the first place and certainly should have beaten out Hofstra for third in the CAA if not been a more serious challenger for the regular season league title. For Smart, a couple of more years to get more experience running a program would be beneficial as he is only 33.

Kansas really didn't have its normal talent level despite the top seed and all of the wins – Looking at that roster, only the Morris twins actually strike fear in anyone. Everybody else is either a nice college player or a youthful guys that didn't really blossom like many other top freshman for whatever reason. Especially at the guard spots, Kansas was vulnerable (they had shown this in the blowout loss to Kansas St.) and any team that could shut down the Morris twins inside would have a decent chance of beating this team (just as Texas did when they beat Kansas in Lawrence early on this season).

I wish BYU still had Brandon Davies – The Cougars would have beaten Florida and I think they also would have beaten Butler with him. The closest team in personnel to the Cougars with Davies is UConn and a potential Connecticut-BYU Kemba-Jimmer final would be absolutely amazing.

Wisconsin will never make another Final Four playing the way they play now – The tempo is just too slow and that makes playing well paramount to winning. Every team in the Final Four had a game where they weren't great or they were lucky to win, and Wisconsin's slow tempo means that if they fall behind, they won't be overcoming that deficit unless they are incredibly lucky.

San Diego St. essentially was Jimmered again, this time by Kemba – So the Aztecs did have Kryptonite this season. It was the team with the ability to defend the post and also have a huge perimeter scorer. BYU did them in twice in the regular season with this formula (there was no post defense without Davies in the 3^rd game) and UConn used the same formula with Kemba Walker in the Jimmer role and bigs that rebounded against the Aztec front line.

Duke played to its capability, but they were overrated in the first place – Looking back on Duke's season, there were really no impressive wins other than the two over North Carolina (who at least had a win over Kentucky to fall back on). In fact, only the win over Kansas St. rates as anything decent done before the conference schedule as Butler was still scuffling and Michigan St. was just bad. In the game against Arizona, Duke played well in the first half and Arizona, other than Williams didn't. A normal top-seeded Duke team would have had the Wildcats so far down that the big 2^nd half wouldn't have mattered. This wasn't a normal top-seed Duke team and the flaws will continue to show next season when Nolan Smith and Kyle Singler are gone and Kyrie Irving might be too.

Down below the NCAA's in the NIT – Colorado and Alabama have made the selection committee look even more foolish for putting UAB and USC in the field. Both the Buffaloes and Crimson Tide have steamrolled their way to the semifinals at Madison Square Garden where they will play each other. Good for them unlike annual Selection Sunday snub Virginia Tech who lost (as usual) in this field to validate the decision to leave them out.

Further down the spectrum in the CBI – Normally this wouldn't even merit a mention, but I like the CBI's best of three format for its championship series and getting Oregon with new coach Dana Altman against his former school Creighton at least adds some intrigue to the proceedings considering Creighton gets an unexpected home game against its former coach.

Back to to Final Four and the winner will be... - Kentucky will finally solve the Kemba question and advance to the championship game where they will be facing Butler. The Bulldogs will end the VCU run as much because of the dome as anything else. It is different shooting in each dome and Reliant Stadium is quite different from the smaller Alamodome where VCU played its regional. When it comes down to it, a cold shooting start from combined with Butler's experience will set up a Butler-Kentucky final. In that game, talent wins out and John Calipari finally gets the national title he has been chasing for so long in fairly easy fashion. I just think Butler will be out of gas after all the close games and playing a likely track meet against VCU before hand.