CJ's Final Four Thoughts

Heading into the final weekend of the greatest month of the sport year. I'm going to take a line to just say how amazing Stephen Curry is. He quite literally carried an entire program on his back, and just to think how his Davidson team was in the game til the very end. But it wasn't only during the tournament, in fact Stephen Curry's Davidson team played 3 of the 4 Final Four teams and only lost by a combined total of 18 pts. ( One of which was a 12 pt loss to UCLA in a game they at one point had a 17 pt lead) This team is no tourney fluke and is in fact a Top 10 team in the country.

Now this Final Four is very interesting and different as its the first time that all four 1 Seeds made the Final Four. As a result, the talent level is all even and its going to come down to the intangibles, such as hustle, FT shooting, coaching, and senior leadership. Taking all of these into effect I've made my Final Four Predictions.

North Carolina over Kansas- This game would have been a much closer game earlier in the season when Kansas was playing dominant basketball, but that distinction clearly belongs to the Tar Heels. While it will be interesting to see the Heels finally play on a neutral site in this tournament, Tyler Hansbrough has been too dominant and Ellington is due for a huge, huge game. Roy Williams is better coach, and the Oklahoma State distraction is the tip of the iceburg for this Kansas team.

UCLA over Memphis- This game is quite interesting as this is a clash between 2 different styles as UCLA would love this game to be in the 50's and the Tigers would love this to be in the 70-80's. Every year I've picked against UCLA to lose in the early rounds for reason X or reason Y, but you can't argue against 3 consecutive Final Four's and Darren Collision will make sure that he finally gets to a title game, and Kevin Love could be playing his final game or 2 so he'll be sure to step up. Averages are due to even out so since Memphis shot 85% they are due to shoot about 20% this game. Granted it won't be that low but UCLA just has the it factor...

North Carolina over UCLA- ...but the it factor can only get you so far. Collison will explode in this game but North Carolina is just too talented offensively for UCLA to keep up with in this game. Watch for Ty Lawson to try and play on Collision's emotions and get him into early foul trouble. Same goes for Hansbrough on Love. This game could be decided by who can stay on the floor between Hansbrough/Lawson vs Collison/Love. Also if this game comes down to coaching in the last 2 minutes, Roy Williams has a huge advantage with his National Title over Ben Howland who just can't seem to get over the hump.

Scores:

North Carolina: 77
Kansas: 68

UCLA: 64
Memphis: 60

North Carolina: 75
UCLA: 64

-CJ

Comments or Want to Argue/Laugh at my opinions: Email me @ ccsportsblog@yahoo.com