With blue bloods, big men and coaching royalty, the only real upset in this year’s Final Four would be if records for TV viewership are not shattered. What a lineup. Kentucky, Duke and Wisconsin give this Final Four its first trio of No. 1 seeds since 2009, and for only the second time in this millennium. Although Michigan State is a seventh seed and a bit of a surprise, the Spartans do not take a back seat to anybody. Michigan State has been to the Final Four seven times in the past 17 years.
How about that Mount Rushmore of coaches? Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, Kentucky’s John Calipari, Michigan State’s Tom Izzo and Wisconsin’s Bo Ryan are on the shortlist among a who’s who of active college basketball coaches, having combined to take their teams to a dozen Final Fours. Only Ryan among this group lacks a national championship, but his Badgers are back a year after having been edged, 74-73, in the national semifinal when Kentucky guard Aaron Harrison sank a 3-pointer with six seconds left.
For more than a decade, college basketball fans have lamented about the dearth of talented post players. You want big men? This Final Four is teeming with great big men.
Kentucky alone has four players 6-foot-10 or taller, including a couple of hyphenated All-American candidates — Willie Cauley-Stein (7-foot) and Karl-Anthony Towns (6-11). Wisconsin’s Frank Kaminsky (7-0) is the favorite to be named national player of the year, and Duke’s Jahlil Okafor (6-11) figures to be the unanimous pick for national freshman of the year.
Following are notes, quotes and anecdotes about what promises to be, as the players might say, an epic Final Four.
Kentucky’s bid
The Wildcats (38-0) are the first team to reach a Final Four unbeaten since Nevada-Las Vegas in 1991. That UNLV team lost to Duke in a national semifinal, leaving the Bob Knight-coached 1976 Indiana Hoosiers as the last team to go undefeated.
Kentucky’s roster includes nine McDonald’s All-Americans, although one of them, junior forward Alex Poythress, suffered a season-ending knee injury in December. That embarrassment of riches should not take anything away from what Kentucky has accomplished, Izzo said.
“I think what most people don’t realize is there are days when it’s more difficult juggling egos, juggling the NBA stuff, juggling the expectations at a school like Kentucky,” Izzo said. “So, for all the pluses of knowing that maybe you have better talent than most teams, you’ve also got other issues. I don’t know many guys that could have juggled that at Kentucky like (Calipari) has.”
Fandemonium
This is a rare Final Four where each of the participants can count on huge fan bases that are known to travel anywhere to follow their team.
Lexington, Ky., is only 180 miles from Indianapolis, so expect the largest throng in Indianapolis cheering on Kentucky.
“I don’t know how they get tickets (to certain places),” Calipari said. “They know not to wear blue when they’re trying to get tickets. They have to wear red, orange, another color. People don’t want to sell them tickets. But they figure out ways to get in.”
By the way, regarding the other three Final Four teams, Indianapolis is 254 miles from East Lansing, Mich.; 329 miles from Madison, Wis., and 606 miles from Durham, N.C., according to the Indianapolis Star.
Battle on the boards
Rebounding is not exactly a glamorous aspect of basketball, but it’s vital to any good team. The Final Four teams all rank among the nation’s best in that category.
Kentucky ranks 11th nationally at plus-7.3 rebounds per game, with Wisconsin (23rd) at plus-5.7 and Michigan State (25th) and Duke tied at plus-5.6.
Another “Big O”
Duke’s Okafor, who played high school basketball at Whitney High School in Chicago, was considered by many to be the nation’s top high school recruit last year.
What helps to make Okafor special is his “wingspan” of 7 feet, 4½ inches when he stretches out both arms.
He also has enormous hands that allow him to snare rebounds and hold the ball without fear of it being tipped away by a defender.
Krzyzewski has remarked that Okafor has great basketball instincts, is light on his feet for his size, has a good shooting touch “and he knows he’s a post player.”
Big Ten rocks
Nobody should call this a banner season for the Big Ten Conference, which seemed to flounder after winning its challenge series against the ACC in early December. But something seems to happen to the Big Ten in March. The Big Ten has put a team into the Final Four for the fourth consecutive year, the longest current streak among conferences.
“Sometimes I think conferences should be ranked on how teams 12, 11, 10 and 9 are,” Izzo said. “The depth (of the Big Ten) makes it different because there are no nights off.”
Since NCAA Tournament seeding began in 1979, no conference has put multiple teams in the Final Four more often than the Big Ten.
The only mark against the Big Ten? It hasn’t won the championship since Izzo’s Spartans did so in 2000.
Patience, patience
Wisconsin’s Kaminsky, rated a modest three-star recruit in high school, didn’t exactly turn heads when he arrived in Madison.
He averaged only a handful of minutes per game during his first two college seasons, averaging 1.8 points from off the bench as a freshman and 4.2 points as a sophomore reserve. Last year, Kaminsky seemingly became an “overnight” sensation, averaging 13.9 points to earn first-team all-Big Ten honors in leading Wisconsin to the Final Four.
Badgers coach Bo Ryan always believed Kaminsky had a world of potential, with his guard-like skills. Kaminsky played guard throughout youth basketball and was a 6-3 backcourt player as a high school freshman until two growth spurts turned him into a big man.
Good genes
Wisconsin senior guard Traevon Jackson is the son of former Ohio State All-American and longtime NBA player Jimmy Jackson.
Duke freshman forward Justise Winslow is the son of Rickie Winslow, a member of the University of Houston’s Phi Slama Jama dunking act that featured Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler.
Kentucky freshman forward Devin Booker is the son of former Missouri standout Melvin Booker, the 1994 Big Eight player of the year.
Tom Kensler: tkensler@denverpost.com or
