Caribbean Basketball Networks March Madness Final Four

NCAA National Tournament,
Men’s Final Four
The Alamo Dome
San Antonio, Texas.
April 5th, 2oo8.

Now that the Madness of March has finally subsided and were down to the Final Four, in a rather maddening fashion, seeding wise, the top teams managed to advance to the Final Four without relative event. Despite the best bracket wrecking efforts of Davidson’s Stephen Curry, Hot Western Kentucky Coaching Prospect Darrin Horn and his squad along with mid major schools like Siena and Xavier; the teams who the rankings panel picked to be the last teams out of the tournament was indeed who the tournament eventually boiled down to.
The old; the new; the things borrowed and the men in blue made up this years’ NCAA Final Four Field. The Old being the traditional powerhouses like UCLA, North Carolina and Kansas were present at this years final four; The New being represented by Memphis: Conference USA powerhouse and their 37 wins on the season thus far. The borrowed being the NBA talent that were all “forced” to attend college, (i.e. players like Memphis’ Derrick Rose, UCLA’s Kevin Love, Kansas State’s Michael Beasely and Indiana’s Eric Gordon to name a few) and were participating in this years NCAA tournament. Now that that year is up for most of them, these players are probably going to where they belong; NBA rosters via the 2oo8 NBA Draft.And Finally The Blue; every team present at this years’ tournament wore some shade of Blue. (Interesting and also of note, is that Nike, for the first time in what seems like eons, didnt have a team rocking the swoosh in the Final Four, Three teams represented Adidas and the other team was sponsored by The Jordan Brand. Just some marketing observation for you there.)
Now to the game, this years’ first Final Four matchup pitted The Memphis Tigers versus the UCLA Bruins. Memphis, in what was the best defensive performance that I have ever seen a Tiger team put on, held the UCLA bruins to less than 35 percent shooting down the stretch and even at one point held them without a field goal for close to 8 minutes. The hyper defense of Memphis held All American Kevin Love to one of his lowest outputs on the season, had a hand in the face of Micheal Westbrook and Josh Shipp virtually every time they shot and stifled All American Darren Collison so much until he appeared to forget how to run the UCLA offence that he has been running for some three years. It didn’t help that UCLa appeared to be content to hoist up a gaggle of long range shots and forget they had 3 former high school all Americans roaming the post for them, any one of which they could’ve even at least attempted to dump the ball down to. UCLA didn’t, Memphis was relentless and the game was all but over. The final nail in UCLA’s coffin came in the form of All American Chris Douglas Roberts, off an “oh snap” back door cut, taking a bounce pass and slamming it down over flailing PAC-Ten Player of the Year Kevin Love. The slam sealed the deal, 78-63 and Memphis had their 38th win of the season and was through to Monday’s NCAA National Championship game.

In the second matchup, as if the Kansas Jayhawks saw the stellar defensive performance of the Memphis Tigers and decided to raise them one more, Kansas came out from the outset against North Carolina and set the tone…with their defense… of all things. After the two teams came out and teams traded baskets early, Brandon Rush decided to really show why he is a potential NBA lottery pick. Rush filled virtually every lane, made the right passes when needed and knocked down most of the open looks he had. Kansas combo guard Mario Chalmers took up some of the scoring load and Sherron Collins controlled the tempo for much of the half (and the game for that matter). Before the Tar Heels of North Carolina knew what had hit them, they were in a 28 point hole. UNC coach Roy Williams, no doubt, went into the locker room puzzled and frustrated because he knew his team was capable of playing better than they had in the first half. At the half, Kansas led 44-27.
Coming out of the tunnel to start the second half, UNC came to life. Tyler Hansbrough went to work getting a finger on every loose ball that came off the rim and attempted to put it back in, Danny Green went to work on the wing, knocking down a few three pointers and Wayne Ellington and Ty Lawson decided to step their games up to meet the Jayhawks’ challenge. Surprisingly enough, with 8 minutes to go in the game, UNC found themselves only down 4 points. It was now Kansas coach Bill Self’s turn to call a timeout to regroup his troops.

Out of the timeout, Brandon Rush went back to work on the UNC defense; a long three and a runner in the lane and that four point margin was the closest UNC would come for the rest of the game. A pair of backdoor alley-oop slams by Kansas post players Sasha Kaun and Darnell Jackson (off the exact same play just different personnell none the less) put the boot to this years version of the Tarheels. Kansas prevailed 84-66 in the second semi-final.

Of note, The Caribbean Basketball Networks’ Lynchpin of the Game Award goes to Cole Aldrich. Aldrich did his best Bill Laimbeer impersonation as he harassed, outmuscled and (surprisingly) out played National Player of the Year Tyler Hansbrough for a solid chunk of the minutes that he was in the game. Aldrich’s play here tonight was one of the major things that made the difference for the JayHawks. 

Join us again on Monday, when The (36-3) Big Twelve Champion Kansas Jayhawks take on the (38-1) Conference USA Memphis Tigers for the 2oo8 NCAA National Championship.