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NCAA Regional Finals: Sunday Recaps

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The Final Four is set in New Orleans with Kentucky and Kansas joining Louisville and Ohio State in New Orleans next Saturday. TheSportsNotebook recaps the final games in the South & Midwest brackets…

SOUTH (Atlanta): Kentucky 82 Baylor 70
I thought Baylor had the talent to at least compete in this one, but Kentucky showed that when they come to play they are simply unstoppable. They were up twenty by the half and this was the only one of the four regional finals not worth watching in the second half. UK owned the free throw line, getting 44 attempts to Baylor’s 19—an advantage too great to be attributed to just end-game foul situations and translated that into a 30-16 scoring advantage. Baylor had good things going—they won the battle of the point guards, with Pierre Jackson beating Marquis Teague in both points and assists. Perry Jones III and Quincy Acy combined for 39 points and 16 rebounds. But those were the only three players who got anything done. Brady Heslip, whose three-point shooting was identified here as being key to a Bears upset, couldn’t get going. On Kentucky’s side, Anthony Davis had an 18 points/11 rebounds afternoon in spite of a collision with his knee that temporarily had Big Blue Nation undergoing a collective coronary. And Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, a player I’m coming to love, concluded a great two-game through Atlanta with 19 points and 5 rebounds.

John Calipari is in the Final Four for the fourth time in his career (’96 UMass, ’08 Memphis and the past two years with Kentucky). He’s looking for his first ring. For your off-the-wall thought of the day, how about this one—if Kentucky wins it all, and the Miami Heat again come up short of a title, does Heat president Pat Riley place a call to Calipari to see if he wants to take his talents to South Beach? These are the kind of thoughts you come up with when you’re making a three-hour drive across the plains of Illinois with a fellow sports fanatic, but this one makes an almost frightening amount of sense.

MIDWEST (St. Louis) Kansas 80 North Carolina 67
The instinctive thing to say is that the loss of Kendall Marshall finally caught up to North Carolina. And there would be a basis for that belief. The UNC starting backcourt combined for nine points, while Kansas point guard Tyshawn Taylor hit for 22 by himself. North Carolina was out-executed down the stretch in a game much closer than the score makes it sound. As one who saw his bracket finally come down completely with the Tar Heel loss, I’m obviously sympathetic to such a line of thinking. But we have to point out that Carolina’s strength, the front line, was alarmingly pedestrian for a big game—especially a big game when the entire college hoops world knew they’d have to kick up their production. Tyler Zeller, who pounded Ohio for a 20/20 night on Friday, had 12/6 on Sunday. John Henson’s line was 10/4, and Harrison Barnes concluded a two-game stint in St. Louis that stands to cost him a lot of money in the NBA when also had a 10/4 line. Kansas, getting rebounds up and down the starting lineup, and not just from Thomas Robinson and Jeff Withey, but everybody—the Jayhawks won the battle of the boards 40-30 and because of that won the game. So while there’s no point denying the obvious impact Marshall’s loss had on North Carolina, there’s also no point in ignoring that Kansas did what few—if any—teams in college basketball could have done, and it’s contain the entire Carolina frontline while owning the glass.

Bill Self makes his second Final Four trip with Kansas. The last one was with New Orleans…in 2008, when he beat Calipari’s Memphis team thanks to a huge game-tying three at the end of regulation by Jayhawk guard Mario Challmes, whom Calipari will get reacqauainted with when he goes to the Heat this summer. I’m just not going to let this theory die easily.

Saturday’s Final Four games will be Kentucky-Louisville in the opener at 6:09 PM ET, with Kansas-Ohio State following 40 minutes after the conclusion of the first. Last week, TheSportsNotebook gave a historical nod to the 1983 Mideast Regional, one that ended with an epic Louisville-Kentucky final. Now the two rivals can up the ante with their meeting in the Final Four.

NCAA Regional Finals: Saturday Recaps

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The regional finals of the NCAA Tournament got off to a good start on Saturday, with one thriller and another good game. Louisville and Ohio State are on their way to the Final Four. TheSportsNotebook looks back at both games…

WEST REGIONAL (Phoenix): Louisville 72 Florida 68
I’m sitting in a Buffalo Wild Wings with nine other sports geeks doing my Fantasy League baseball draft, with the game up on most of the big-screen TVs. Florida’s up 11 with around five minutes to go, and I start to tune the game out and re-focus on my spirited defense of Chicago Cubs’ catcher Geovany Soto to a room of skeptical Cubbie fans. There must have been some other patrons who decided Florida had the game in hand and mentioned it was time to leave. I say that, because the only explanation for what happened is that the Wild Wings staff re-enacted their commercials, hit a button and somewhere in Phoenix, something happened so that Florida would melt down and make it a game. Florida did almost everything they needed to do. They shot well from the floor and behind the arc and had a balanced attack. The one thing they didn’t do was take care of the ball and turned it over 13 times compared to Louisville’s six. Russ Smith was a big part of not just this win, but the entire weekend. The guard averaged 15ppg in the wins over Michigan State and Florida that have sent Louisville to the Final Four for the first time since 2005 and a shot at their first national title since 1986—and Rick Pitino’s first since 1996 when he was at archrival Kentucky. Ironically it’s Kentucky that would be the opponent if the Wildcats survive Baylor today.

EAST REGIONAL (Boston): Ohio State 77 Syracuse 70
To say this is the game where the absence of Fab Melo caught up to Syracuse would be an understatement. Without their center, the Orangeman were pounded on the boards, to the tune of a 37-22 Buckeye rebounding advantage. Syracuse’s three starting frontline players—Kris Joseph, Rakeem Christmas and C.J. Fair combined for 24 points. With only two frontcourt starts, Jared Sullinger and DeShaun Thomas, Ohio State got 33 points up front. The same personnel matchup doubled up on rebounds for Ohio State.  The only way Syracuse was going to win was by complete domination of the backcourt. Scoop Jardine and Brandon Triche gave it everything they had, while Ohio State’s William Buford was off from three-point range, hitting just 1 of 5. But that just ensured the game would be competitive. In the end, Ohio State had too much muscle. While there’s no question Thad Matta’s team got a nice break with losing Melo, and having 3-seed Florida State eliminated prior to the regionals, there’s also no doubt that Matta’s kids played some outstanding basketball in Boston. After an up-and-down season that looked to be destined to be one of unfulfilled promise, Ohio State first snuck back into a tie for the Big Ten title and is now heading to the Final Four for the first time since 2007 and aiming for their first national title since 1960. North Carolina or Kansas will be the opponent in New Orleans.