Storylines Enhance Final Four

"If I was double-teamed, I was prepared to find the open man," he said.

Someone pointed out that he was double-teamed. Green smiled. "Yeah, I know."

"Jon (Wallace) was wide open at the top of the key," Thompson (the younger) said.

"Yeah, I know," Green said again.

Bottom line: he was taking the shot. People at Vanderbilt will scream forever that Green switched pivot feet (and they will be right) but that call wasn't getting made at that moment. Against the double-team, Green made the shot. Georgetown won.

Two days later, trailing a hugely-talented North Carolina team by 10 points with six minutes to play, it would have been easy for the Hoyas to call it a season, talk about how they had returned to the Regional Finals and talk about next season when, if no one leaves early, they could be a preseason No. 1 nationally.

But they didn't do that. They kept grinding away, shut Carolina down with a zone defense and Wallace nailed a three-pointer with 31 seconds left to tie the game. They dominated the overtime against a Carolina team that looked as if it was in shock that they weren't already cutting down the nets.

Instead, Georgetown cut them down while Old John and Young John embraced and Ewing came on to the court to hug his son, Georgetown junior Patrick Ewing Jr. who, like Young John isn't nearly as tall as his father but has some of his basketball talent.

Georgetown will be the feel good story of this Final Four. Florida will be the team everyone will be watching because the Gators have a chance to make history by becoming only the second team since John Wooden retired at UCLA in 1975 to win in back-to-back years.

Of course they have to beat Wooden's old school to get back to the final. And Ohio State will bring the next great center in the game, Greg Oden, to challenge Georgetown and its developing center, Roy Hibbert.

The storylines are everywhere. Fathers and sons; old dynasties against new ones; fallen powers on the rise again. Yes, CBS has to love this. The rest of us should enjoy it too.