The Final Four, 2023 edition, is history.
Hail to the Huskies.
It was a memorable tournament, for sure.
Was it the greatest of all time? How do you measure that?
And why do we have to rate everything that happens in sports?
When you do that, you lose perspective.
Let’s just say the NCAA basketball championship was unique.
It had elements we hadn’t seen before.
It also had a championship game that was anti-climactic.
Not every title contest has to be a barn-burner that goes down to the wire.
This one certainly wasn’t.
There is no guarantee that it will.
UConn made sure of that.
The Huskies won their fifth national title, and you can read about how that accomplishment in the last 25 years dwarfs others who have been perennial kings.
Connecticut has been a national hoops power for decades, but lately they have not.
Now they appear to be back.
But let’s not go off the deep end yet.
This year’s Final Four saw all the top-seeded teams ousted earlier than ever.
There were thrilling upsets early.
The Final Four featured three schools who had never seen that territory before.
Florida Atlantic had only competed in the Big Dance once before.
Losing in the first round to Alabama in 2002.
Now they were playing in the national semifinals where San Diego State’s Lamont Butler scored on a 15-foot jumper to win an intensely thrilling game, 72-71.
Heartbreak time in Boca Raton, Florida, but sheer elation in San Diego, Cal.
The other Final Four first-timer, Miami didn’t have enough to overcome UConn in the other semi-final to set up the Huskies and the Aztecs in the championship.
UConn was superior.
They built up a big lead and saw it dwindle to five in the second half. But they had an answer, and that was that.
Twelve of the top-rated teams by the NCAA selection committee were never a factor.
Teams who were not considered to have a chance in the world were alive and kicking.
That’s what made the Final Four unique.
But the danger lurks when long shots advance far into the fray.
The danger is they can be outclassed by the better team still alive when the spotlight is brightest.
That’s what happened in Houston.
Did we underestimate UConn?
I say no.
The Huskies were a team that played its best in the tournament and won out.
That’s all any team sets out to do.
Should they have been seeded higher?
I say no.
UConn finished tied for fourth place in the Big East conference.
They were tied with Providence, behind Marquette, Xavier and Creighton.
Why would they have been rated higher?
Now all the talk is about how the Big East is back as a one of the top power leagues.
We all remember the Big East when it was, indeed, the best conference in the nation.
Syracuse was a major part of that.
So was Georgetown, St. John’s, and you readers know the rest.
When Villanova shocked Patrick Ewing and the Hoyas in 1985, St. John’s made it three members of the Big East in the Final Four.
It’s not the same now.
In listing the teams that finished ahead of the Huskies in this year’s Big East, are schools from Milwaukee, Cincinnati, and Omaha.
How far east are those cities?
But I do see a couple of the originals in position to become a bigger force.
Georgetown hired Ed Cooley, the extremely capable head coach from Providence.
And St. John’s brought in Rick Pitino, a man with a checkered past personally, to say the least, but a man who I believe has no peers as a basketball coach.
Those two Big East traditionals, especially St. John’s will be heard from.
As an alum of the Orange, I still wish they were in the Big East, where they belong.
I know it’s all about money, and how football drives the bus, but those games against Villanova, Georgetown, UConn, St. John’s, etc. were unforgettable.
So the Final Four is history, and I feel it delivered in ways it hadn’t before.
It really never fails to live up to its reputation.
What was a major story of this one, was the final game for Jim Nantz, who is not going into the sunset, but will no longer call college basketball on CBS.
Jim, who was hired as a fresh-faced kid out of a Salt Lake City TV station has been his network’s voice of the sport since 1991.
I was with CBS when he came aboard and immediately had that magic that would propel him to greatness in our business.
He will remain the voice of CBS’ golf coverage, including the crown jewel, the Masters, as well as the NFL, where he’ll continue to call Super Bowls.
Jim was appropriately saluted and honored during the tournament, particularly in the Final Four in Houston, where he attended the University of Houston.
The perfect scenario would have been Jim Nantz describing his alma mater’s bid for an NCAA title, in their home city.
But not everything has a perfect scenario, as we know.
Houston, one of the four Number 1 seeds was beaten.
What people may, or may not know, is that Jim Nantz’ roommate at Houston was the great golfer Fred Couples.
Couples is competing at the Masters as a past champion, and Nantz, who has already had the thrill of a lifetime , calling his former roommate’s Masters title, will be on hand once again in Augusta, atop the 18th tower.
What an easy transition to next week’s story.
The Masters.
It may be a bit different this year.
Past champions, and others who have jumped from the PGA Tour to the LIV Tour are competing.
There are 15 players, many of the best, who will be face-to-face with those who resent their departure.
All of that will be a backdrop to the actual playing of the first major of the year.
The tournament is always front and center.
Stay tuned.