Welcome Guest   |  Login   |   Signup
JG Logo
Wed, May 23, 2012
Archive Search

NCAA Tournament Sees Unlikely Final Four
Steve Ginsburg | April 02, 2010

West Virginia’s Joe Mazzulla, left, and Da’Sean Butler celebrating after winning the East Region. West Virginia’s Joe Mazzulla, left, and Da’Sean Butler celebrating after winning the East Region.
Share This Page
0
0
0
0
Share with google+ :


Post a comment
Please login to post comment

Comments

Be the first to write your opinion!

Indianapolis. One of the most unpredictable and compelling NCAA collegiate basketball tournaments in years draws to a close with a Final Four this weekend featuring traditional powers and smaller upstart teams.

South Region top seed Duke faces West Virginia in one semi­final on Saturday at sold-out Lucas Oil Stadium, while giant-killing Butler takes on Michigan State in the other.

Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, whose Atlantic Coast Conference champion Blue Devils are the only No. 1 seed to make it to the Final Four in Indianapolis, said he was not surprised the 64-team tournament had been full of spectacular upsets.

“For all of us coaches in college basketball today, no one’s surprised that anybody beat another team,” said Krzyzewski, coaching in his 11th Final Four.

“There just isn’t the difference that there was a decade ago from the top, historic programs and the emerging programs. There are just a lot of good basketball teams right now.”

Duke (33-5) will have its hands full with Big East champion West Virginia, a defensive-minded team on a 10-game winning streak and making its first Final Four appearance since 1959.

Mountaineers coach Bob Huggins believes a victory by his 31-6 team in Monday’s national title game would set off a party across the state of West Virginia.

“My grandfather never missed a game on the radio. There are certainly thousands of other people who grew up the same way,” said Huggins, who played for the Mountaineers in the 1970s.

The Michigan State-Butler game features a traditional power facing an upstart team whose campus is just 10 kilometers from the site of the Final Four.

Horizon League champion Butler (32-4) eliminated the top two seeds in the West Region to set up a meeting with 2009 NCAA runner-up Michigan State (28-8), which has reached the Final Four in six of the past dozen years.

“It’s refreshing that you’re looking at four teams [for which] ‘team’ is maybe the most important thing,” Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said.

“It’s going to make for a good Final Four in a different way,” Izzo said.

 

Reuters