The Final Four is always a fantastic spectacle, and this year it will certainly be no different.
We have never seen matchups such as the ones we will watch tomorrow night. With Connecticut the highest remaining seed at a three, the teams that will take the floor in Houston tomorrow night are surprising to say the least.
I could easily break down the games and make predictions, but I tried that last week and my picks were frightfully off.
Instead, I’ll bring up something not many are talking about. These Final Four matchups feature four very interesting coaching figures.
In one game, we have Brad Stevens, who rightfully so, is being looked at as the future of college basketball, and Shaka Smart.
Stevens is Mister Cool. You will never see him rattled on the sideline, and his Butler team has really taken on his persona on the court. Winning or losing, they always play hard and smart.
Smart has really burst onto the scene in the last few weeks by taking a VCU team, who many believed shouldn’t have even been in the tournament, from the First Four to the Final Four.
The run the Rams are on is truly incredible, and they have certainly helped earn coach Smart a significant pay raise following the season.
The other matchup features two coaches that have been around for some time. Jim Calhoun and John Calipari are two of the most successful coaches in college basketball and they just always flat out produce wins.
Calhoun has two national titles, and Calipari became just the second coach to take three different schools to the Final Four (it happened but the first two have large asterisks next to them).
The Butler-VCU game provides us with so many things that are right with college basketball. It is two of the hottest young coaches who don’t have the high profile recruits or the facilities.
Stevens and Smart are so humbled to even be where they are and their teams are so fun to watch. How to you choose who to root for in this game? Both stories are so great and both teams so likeable.
Yes, they may have ruined many people’s brackets, but this is what march is all about. I’ve labeled this game as “The forces of good.”
The UConn-UK matchup provides us with so many things wrong with College basketball.
I am in no way insinuating that these two teams don’t deserve to be where they are. They absolutely do.
Both teams haven’t lost a game since the regular season and have beaten some really good teams along the way. I’m more referring to the coaching. As good as Calipari and Calhoun are, lets not look past the facts.
They both cheat and everyone knows it, but no one is talking about it.
They are certainly not the only two coaches in college basketball who cheat, whether they have gotten caught or not. No one talks about the fact that
Calhoun has a looming three game suspension next season for infractions with a player they never even got on campus in Storrs. People will mention that Calipari is the second coach to take two teams to the Final Four, but not that the first two were taken away from those schools due to cheating.
Even just today, foxsports.com broke a story that a former assistant to Calipari was cited for infractions when recruiting Demarcus Cousins at both Memphis and Kentucky. What a start to their Final Four weekend.
It’s also worth mentioning that Jim Calhoun openly despises John Calipari. Earlier this week, he referred to the other three coaches remaining as his two sons and his problem child. Guess who the problem child is.
The UConn- UK matchup is most definitely being labeled as “The forces of Evil”.
All four teams left have earned their way to Houston and both games promise to be entertaining. That said, it’s laughable how ironic these match-ups are. It’s good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, moral vs. immoral.
It’s hard to get any more intriguing than this Final Four from so many different angles, so let’s hope the games live up to the stage, and to all of the awesome story lines.
