Final Four

The NCAA tournament is now down from 64 teams to just 4, #2 Oklahoma, #2 Villanova, #10 Syracuse, and #1 North Carolina. Before the tournament started, I think many people thought that there might be some upsets, but for the most part the core teams that had been at the top all season long would make the Final Four. Those teams were Kansas, North Carolina, Michigan State, Oklahoma, and maybe Virginia. But many of the teams that I thought could win a title are now out, Michigan State went first, then Kansas, and finally Virginia. Most people in the nation picked Michigan State and Kansas to make the championship game, as you can see here, in fact about 1/4 picked MSU or KU respectively. So when Michigan State got upset, it was incredibly surprising, but I think it was equally surprising when Villanova took down the Jayhawks. Especially because Villanova for a long time was thought to be a team that didn't make it very far in the tournament, the past couple of years, they didn't make it very far at all despite being high seeds.

Oklahoma was the first team to advance to the Final Four, beating #1 Oregon 80-68. Oklahoma once again used a strong offense, lead by a barrage of three's and good ball movement, but they also held Oregon under 40% shooting. Their next opponent Villanova defeated Kansas 64-59, the Wildcats shot a lower percentage, but coverted their free throws at a high rate, and took better care of the ball than Kansas. Out of these two I would like to say that Oklahoma will advance, but I think that I and most of America, has severely underestimated Villanova. This game will be very close, and there will be a lot of excellent guard play on both sides, but I'm going to take Villanova 80-78.

Syracuse somehow beat Virginia, in fact I saw that Virginia was up by about 12 and I figured that the lead would only grow but the Orange went on a monstrous run to take the lead, and they did not look back. North Carolina used their incredible size, and depth to just overpower #6 Notre Dame 88-74, and they won handily without a great game from one of their star seniors Marcus Paige. I believe that North Carolina will have a very similar game against Syracuse, and I think they will do handily. I think North Carolina is probably the most likely out of the four teams to win it all.