Tuesday, March 28, 2000
It's worst-ever Final Four group
Teams have most losses in history
BY MIKE DeCOURCY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
You can add this up however you like, though you might not like the answer.
Never have the teams gathered for college basketball's Final Four lost so many games along the way. Never have the teams come from such collectively deep seeds within the NCAA Tournament bracket.
The best of the teams that will play this weekend at the RCA Dome, Michigan State, lost to an 11-17 team, Wright State, from the nation's 15th-rated conference.
The weakest, North Caroli na, defeated only one Top 25 team before the tournament began.
Michigan State, Florida, Wisconsin and North Carolina combined to lose 40 games during the regular season. A year ago, Connecticut, Duke, Michigan State and Ohio State combined for only 15 defeats.
Last year's Final Four included three No.1 seeds and a No.4, making their average seed a No.2. This year, the average Final Four team is a No. 6 seed.
It is the worst Final Four in modern history.
Of course, for Michigan State, it's a reasonably inviting Final Four, because the Spar tans now won't need to defeat a legitimate powerhouse opponent to win their first national championship. For Wisconsin, it's a thrill, and for Florida, it's a promise of future success and an opportunity to push ahead the pace of the program's development. For North Carolina, which suffered through its poorest season in decades, it is a bit of a relief.
None of them are complaining about the state of the Final Four, and there are plenty of fans who've enjoyed the unpredictability. An unscientific poll at sportingnews.com asked readers whether the NCAA Tournament rated as thrilling, average or below average. Interestingly, 75 percent of those who responded chose “thrilling.” Only 9.5 percent said “below average.”
The NCAA men's basketball committee, which selected and seeded the field, will be pleased to hear that, because their decisions about whom to award high seeds and where to place them on the bracket led to the second-round carnage that saw eight of the top 12 seeds lose.
Committee chairman Craig Thompson, who oversaw the construction of this structure, now is trying to spin the results of the early rounds to suggest that the identity of the Final Four teams proves that those teams that “go out and play people” will prove they belong.
But while North Carolina played the nation's 14th-toughest schedule, according to the collegerpi.com ratings, and Wisconsin's was rated No. 5, Kentucky had the toughest schedule — and went out in the second round. So did six others rated in the top 10 (Cincinnati, St. John's, Texas, Maryland and Kansas). Saint Louis lost in the first round. Iowa did not make the tournament.
So it worked for Wisconsin, but not the others? Not likely.
If there is any universal truth to be taken from the results of a tournament that presented us with this Final Four, it is that in the absence of genuinely powerful teams com mitment to an uncommon system becomes an advantage.
Wisconsin won its four games by holding opponents to 55.8 points and 38.8 shooting with its combative style of man-to-man defense. The Badgers blocked only 10 shots in those games, but their opponents still missed 131.
Florida took the precisely opposite direction to the same result. The Gators seduced Oklahoma State and Duke into playing much more rapidly than either normally does and into taking shots that rarely develop from their base offenses.
Together, the Cowboys and Blue Devils committed 40 turnovers against Florida. For the year, their combined average was 29. Post man Carlos Boozer got just five shots in 21 minutes against Florida, because his teammates declined to wait and get him the ball. In the final of the ACC Tournament against Maryland, an easy Blue Devils win, he shot 14 times and scored 21.
What will happen in Saturday's semifinals thus will be dictated by how the opponents deal with the uncommon style Wisconsin and Florida enforce.
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