Michigan State has defeated Wisconsin and thus advances to Monday's
Championship game.
John Wooden was quoted somewhere as being worried that the team game was
slowly disappearing, but in this game, it was absolutely not true. Both teams
played together, offensively and particuarly on defense, and Wisconsin, in
particular, deserves huge praise for being more than the sum of their
parts. Really they had no business being here, at least not talent
wise, but there they were. Not a talented team, relatively speaking,
they prove the old adage that basketball is, as Wooden rightly holds, a team
game.
More so than some recent years, this Final Four is about great defense.
Obviously MSU and Wisconsin are both tremendous defensively and Florida is as
well. And UNC? Well, each team to lose to them says something along the lines
of, gee, we had our shots, they just didn't go down for us tonight.
Florida may end up saying something like that, but eventually, UNC will get
credit for a strong defensive performance as well. Four teams haven't gone
down because UNC isn't playing defense. It's not some disconnected phenomenon.
It's not like Wisconsin's or Florida's, but it's pretty damn good, and it's
gotten them to where they are, because other than turnovers, their offense was
pretty good all along.