Quick Tourney Thoughts....Then Moving Forward

Been away for a while (life on the road!), but I'm working on additional interviews for the blog. In the meantime, I have to say this goes down as one of the more entertaining yet disappointing tournaments I can remember.

First off, the tournament is exciting regardless of who makes it, and this year's games certainly played out that way (Murray St/Vandy, Purdue/A&M, Xavier/K-State, Butler against anyone). That being said, I certainly found the teams to be relatively "ho-hum" at the Final Four. Of all the great teams during the regular season (Kansas, Kentucky, Syracuse, WVU, and Purdue before the Hummel injury) and all the great individual talent (Evan Turner, John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, and Wes Johnson), it certainly was disappointing that none of them made it to the biggest stage. While the team's that made it were certainly deserving, I still think it was a little anti-climatic.

Looking at the Final Four pool of teams, Butler had the toughest draw throughout the bracket: they beat Syracuse, K-State, and Michigan State to get to the finals. Duke somehow lucked into the easiest bracket of all the #1 seeds, which was a travesty to Kansas, Kentucky, and Syracuse. They did win the games they were supposed to, which is a credit to them. However, I cannot remember a national championship game with less individual elite talent on the floor at once. As much as everyone wants to say that the best "team" wins, that traditionally has not been the case with the NCAA tournament. If you think back to the last 4 national title games (UNC/MSU, Kansas/Memphis, Ohio State/Florida, and UCLA/Florida), all of those participants had multiple future pros on their rosters. Duke currently has 1-2 pros and Butler probably has none, proving this game was quite the anomaly compared to the last several years.

The good thing is the end of NCAA basketball allows all of us to turn our attention to spring football, the NBA playoffs, and baseball. Plenty of areas to write about in the near future, and excited about what the spring holds for all of us sports fans!