2011: The Year of the Improbable Final Four

Butler's Matt Howard

Connecticut, Kentucky, Virginia Commonwealth, Butler. Not the Final Four most of us predicted, or would have even thought possible. Many said (myself included) that one of the teams, VCU, should not have even been selected into the tournament in the first place. And judging by their regular season resume, they indeed should not have. Butler returns as a Cinderella for the second consecutive year, being an inch or two from knocking Duke off in the championship game a year ago and becoming national champions. In order to do it this time around, they will have to knock off the suddenly surging Rams of VCU, then upset one of the big name schools, the winner of UConn and Kentucky, in the championship game.

By now your bracket may have already been through the paper shredder, possibly just after the first round. You're not alone. As you may already know, this was possibly the worst bracket year ever. Two Final Four teams probably wins you your pool. Some pool winners might only have one correctly picked Final Four team. After all, there is only ONE bracket of the almost six million on ESPN's Tournament Challenge that have all four selected correctly. The wild card causing this was VCU, who had no impressive victories in the regular season and had to begin their Road to the Final Four with a play-in game against USC. After knocking off the No. 1 seed Kansas Jayhawks this past weekend, Jamie Skeen and the VCU Rams are one of the last four standing, their improbable journey not yet completed.

Apart from the team, university and its fans, who has enjoyed this VCU run the most? Probably the selection committee's chairman, Ohio St. A.D. Gene Smith. Why? The bracket his committee unveiled was criticized to no end (see my post from March 10, Let the Madness Begin, where I was also critical of the committee's selections), because of the admittance of VCU and UAB in place of Colorado and Virginia Tech for the final at-large bids. ESPN's Jay Bilas called this "a joke", and college basketball analysts and fans across the country were in an uproar. But boy, has VCU ever proved them all wrong. Sure, UAB went on to haplessly fall in the play-in, and maybe Colorado should have made it in to the tourney instead of them, but VCU's admittance into the Dance was meant to be. The Rams have made Smith and the committee look like geniuses.

VCU seems to play better on short rest, when teams have less time to prepare. Lacking the athleticism and pure skill of the teams they have knocked out, they find ways to win in other ways, such as moving the ball around for open threes. Other teams have not had a chance to see them play much, and only a day or so to prepare, so they do not know what to expect. The only team that came close to beating VCU was the 10th-seeded Florida St. Seminoles, who had the multiple days in between the first two rounds and the Sweet Sixteen to prepare. Butler will have an entire week, and I am sure few will be taken aback if the Bulldogs advance one again to the finale.

National Player of the Year candidate Kemba Walker leads the charge for UConn as they face Brandon Knight and the young guns of Kentucky. Most people had Kentucky losing to Ohio State on their bracket (I boldly went with Kentucky in one of the few picks I got right). UConn, the Big East champ, was a favorite along with Duke out of the West region. While UConn is the favorite, based on the way Kentucky has played recently this game is essentially a toss-up, and an argument could be made for either squad.

Most of this country will be cheering loudly for the mid-major to knock of the big-name school on April 4 in Houston for the conclusion of *arguably* the greatest postseason all of sports has to offer. Does either VCU or Butler have enough left in the tank to pull out two more Ws? Or will this year be a repeat of the last, where Goliath gets the best of David? We'll know next week.

Kentucky Preparatory

Seniors are hard to come by on a Kentucky Wildcats basketball team. There is only one this year, a forward named Josh Harrellson, who is far from a household name.

Why is this? Like many of the other big-time schools, players at Kentucky leave early for the NBA. A prime example is last season, when UK lost four freshman to the NBA: DeMarcus Cousins, Eric Bledsoe, Daniel Orton, and John Wall. This was likely because of the fairly recent NBA rule that states in order to be eligible for the NBA, a player must have at least a year of college experience (or professionally in other countries).

With these four players, it seems all coach John Calipari and Kentucky did in the 2009-10 season was prepare these players for the NBA. A national championship would be nice for them, but not their prime focus.

This is the argument against the one-year college rule: that the players play in college simply because they have to, rather than going to the NBA straight from high school, devaluing the college game.

And let's face it: with the exception of John Wall, these players all left too early in the first place. All prized draft picks, only one is playing especially successful basketball, and one has not played at all. They certainly could have benefited from more time at Kentucky under Calipari's tutelage. 

Take a look at Daniel Orton. He hardly played last year at Kentucky as a freshman, and was a first round draft pick simply because of potential. He was stuck in the rotation all year behind Cousins and Patrick Patterson. This year, he'd have started. Instead, he's riding the pine on the Orlando Magic, not having seen a minute of court time in the NBA.

Eric Bledsoe was hidden in John Wall's shadows last season at UK, but started alongside him and showed NBA-caliber skills. The starring role would've been his this year, and he, like Orton, would have greatly benefited at Kentucky had he stayed. Instead, he's backing up Baron Davis on the Clippers, but his situation is far better than Orton's: he's getting some PT, putting up decent rookie numbers, and looks like the apparent heir to Davis at PG.

DeMarcus Cousins is starting to look solid in the NBA, and it seems as if he will be for years to come. The one thing separating him from immediate stardom is the fact he left so early.

John Wall was said to be NBA-ready the second he joined UK's roster. He would have been a guy who, like Kobe and LeBron, took the leap from high school to the pros. With a little more maturity in his game, he could be an all-time great.

But the question is, did all four of these guys come to Kentucky simply because it's the required gateway to the pros? Or because of the desire to play college basketball that many of the other guys at that level have? Most likely the former. Which is why the one-year college rule needs to be reconsidered.