Pieces Are 'All There' For a Fantastic Finish

The last shot of an otherwise dull two days finally injected a measure of suspense into the NCAA men's tournament's penultimate weekend. Top seeds UCLA, North Carolina and Memphis had already landed in the Final Four with easy victories. Only Jason Richards's three-pointer at the buzzer Sunday could keep Kansas from joining them.

But the shot sailed wide of the rim, dispatching Davidson, the lone underdog remaining.

An event built on Hollywood stories delivered few this year, but a blockbuster may yet await: a Final Four packed with the most talented teams in the country. For the first time since the NCAA began seeding the men's tournament in 1979, all four number one seeds advanced to the Final Four, making San Antonio host to a talent show unseen before in college basketball.

"It will be a true national championship," said George Mason Athletic Director Tom O'Connor, the chairman of the tournament selection committee. "On the court, it's the four best teams in the country. It's all there."

All four teams will likely send at least four players to the NBA, and as many as 22 future pros will take the Alamodome court Saturday evening.

The Jayhawks, Tigers, Tar Heels and Bruins enter with a combined record of 143-9 and styles that make for enticing matchups. Quicksilver Memphis will test UCLA's stout defense in a rematch of a 2006 region final, and Kansas Coach Bill Self promised his fast-breaking team wouldn't try to slow down North Carolina, the tournament's highest-scoring team.

"I can't imagine there being a more exciting scenario," Self said. "I guess we can be the underdogs, since we're the fourth number one seed. There's not much difference between the four teams from a performance standpoint. You're going to have four premier teams out there."

While fans have grown to cherish underdogs reaching college basketball's grandest stage, their inclusion often makes for bland games. (See Florida 73, George Mason 58, 2006.) In three previous tournaments -- 1993, 1997 and 1999 -- three No. 1 seeds advanced to the Final Four. The title game each of those seasons was decided in the game's final 15 seconds or in overtime.

In both the preseason Associated Press and coaches' polls, North Carolina, UCLA, Memphis and Kansas ranked one through four, in that order. So if the NCAA arranged a four-team tournament nearly five months ago to determine the national title, pitting No. 1 vs. 4 and No. 2 vs. No. 3, it would have played out identically to the actual Final Four.

UCLA and Kansas are both 35-3, "and we haven't performed as consistently as the others," Self said. "Over time, in my opinion, watching all the teams play, there were hot teams that came in and out of there. But there were four constants. It's remarkable you have the top four teams play with that consistency all year long."

The top seeds advancing also created another, more subtle first: No team seeded third or lower has made the Final Four for two consecutive years. The dearth of surprises followed the chaos of 2006, when George Mason advanced to the semifinals as a No. 11 seed and no top seeds made the Final Four for the first time.

The recent dominance of the top seeds coincided with the NBA's decree that high school players must spend at least one season in college, but several coaches said the timing is a coincidence.

"This year, maybe we were just a little bit better than the rest of the field," Memphis Coach John Calipari said. "I think the four of us had separated from the field. Next year, it may be a two [seed], a three and two sixes. This year was a little different."

The fifth winner of this tournament, then, may be O'Connor and the committee. After all, 29 selection committees previously had tried to project the best four teams in the country, and only this year's succeeded. The committee "zeroed in" on eight teams it believed might be one seeds, O'Connor said, and chose the four one seeds from that group.

O'Connor said he didn't extract any personal satisfaction from the final result, but several coaches credited the committee. "I've got to give it to them," Calipari said. "To do that and have it play out the way it did, they didn't make many mistakes, if they made any."

All favorites making the Final Four may actually be the tournament's largest upset. Statistician Ken Pomeroy of Basketball Prospectus used a complex formula before the tournament to determine the chances all four one seeds would reach the Final Four. He concluded there was a 3.5 percent chance -- and a 4.6 percent chance for a No. 16 seed to beat a No. 1 seed, which has never happened.

It is telling that Pomeroy, on the Basketball Prospectus Web site, refers to all four one seeds reaching the Final Four as the "Doomsday Scenario." For most fans, a memorable NCAA tournament means only buzzer beaters and Cinderella teams. The reward for missing those elements could come now, if this weekend's promise makes up for last weekend's tedium.

"This," Calipari said, "is going to be a crazy Final Four."