After all is said and done, the Final Four will be just fine.
Thank goodness that the NCAA doesn’t really have anything to do with who will win the national championship. They can botch everything else from equity of weight rooms between men and women to the nightmarish transfer portal.
But on the court, the teams decide what the results will be. And while all the players, coaches, trainers and doctors deserve a big shout out for getting us all to the last 10 days, it looks like the finish line will be crossed by one of the best teams in the country all season.
On Saturday, the Midwest Sweet Sixteen almost guarantees to send a Cinderella back to Lucas Oil Stadium the following weekend. Houston, the No. 2 seed and a lucky second-round winner over 10th seeded Rutgers, goes against 11 seed Syracuse with the oldest coach in the Big Dance and one of the best offense-defense combinations.
The other side of the Midwest can’t be called the Cinderella Sweet Sixteen because 8 seed Loyola of Chicago has already taken out one of the overall favorites in top-seeded Illinois. And 12 seed Oregon State upset the 4 seed (Tennessee) and 5 seed (Oklahoma State).
In the South Region, top seed Baylor is too strong for pretty strong Villanova and 15 seed Oral Roberts might actually outrun 3 seed Arkansas after dispatching 2 seed Ohio State and 7 Florida.
On Sunday, in the West Region, overall No. 1 seed Gonzaga continues on its dream for an undefeated national championship, beating 5 seed Creighton to meet the winner of the Pac 12 Sweet Sixteen match up between 6 seed Southern Cal and 7 Oregon, which should be a beauty.
In the East, top seed Michigan, the only team left of 9 from the Big Ten, is a little stronger and faster than 4 seed FSU, while 2 seed Alabama, the so-called fifth No. 1 seed, will crush 11 seed UCLA, the fourth Pac 12 team in a surprisingly strong showing for that league.
So, I’ll talk to you Monday morning when the Elite Eight will look like Gonzaga-Oregon, Michigan-Alabama; Loyola-Syracuse and Baylor-Arkansas.
Whichever four of those teams can stick around Indy until the next weekend, they will deserve to have survived it all and advanced.
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