Tournament fever?

From a neutral standpoint, yesterday's men's Final Four doubleheader was a LOT better than any of the last four season's games. In 2000, Michigan State-Wisconsin was ugly, Florida-UNC was barely a contest; in 2001, Arizona-Michigan State was a blowout, Duke-Maryland was a classic; in 2002, Indiana-Oklahoma was sloppy, Maryland-Kansas was a decent game once KU got up off the mat; last year, Marquette-Kansas was an unmitigated disaster, Syracuse-Texas was a very good game. Yesterday = two "Instant Classics" if ESPN could get immediate re-broadcast rights from CBS. So now, some quick thoughts.

Duke's Mike Krzyzewski went through the same happy dance he always does on the all-too-rare occasions that Duke loses in the NCAA Tournament. First, he ripped on a newsie who suggested his team collapsed. Then he delivered his usual song-and-dance about how he loves his kids, etc., etc. All this after he yelled at the refs after the game "you killed us, you killed us, you killed us". But in the real world, going from 75-67 up with just more than three minutes left to down 79-75 with 3.2 seconds left, hoisting bad shots early in the shot clock while nursing a lead, and committing poor fouls is what Duke's opponents do when they collapse. Coach K needs to deal with it.

Give Jim Calhoun tons of credit. No panic; sticking to his philosophy of sitting his players who get two fouls in the first half until halftime even when it's the best player in the country, and getting Ben Gordon to go to the basket in the second half.

I'm happy for Paul Hewitt and Georgia Tech. I like Hewitt, he seems a decent guy and he is unquestionably a good coach. Nice job to get his team to the NCAA final game with his best player hobbled throughout the whole tournament. Considering that Hewitt led the Yellow Jackets to the final game -- something that Bobby Cremins never did -- and that Hewitt has cleaned up the mess Cremins left when he resigned, I'm thinking GT was a little premature to name the court at Alexander Memorial Colisseum after the white-haired wonder.