It started with 65.
Now we are down to the top four teams in college basketball as the NCAA Tournament heads to Indianapolis for its final showcase. But if you said that the Final Four would be Butler, Michigan State, West Virginia and Duke, you are in the minority. Duke and West Virginia were not so farfetched, but the Bulldogs and Spartans are representing the West and Midwest regions instead of the likes of Kansas, Syracuse, Kansas State and Ohio State.
One of those two surprise teams will earn a spot in the championship game against the winner of Duke−West Virginia, a matchup of two of the best coaches in the nation in Duke's Mike Krzyzewski and WVU's Bob Huggins. Here's a look at the four teams that have a shot to be holding the national championship trophy on Monday.
1. Duke: The Blue Devils are back in the Final Four for the first time since 2004 and will head to Indianapolis as the favorite to win their first championship since 2001. Before the tournament, quite a few people did not believe Duke deserved to get a No. 1 seed, but somehow it was gifted the easiest run through its regional by being placed at the top of the South bracket.
Duke easily dispatched Arkansas−Pine Bluff and California in its first two games and pulled away from both Purdue and Baylor in close games in the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight, respectively, to navigate its way to Indiana.
Most people expected that Duke would be here, but the question is: Can it finish the job now? First things first, though: The Blue Devils will need to get by a very good West Virginia team that could be playing with a chip on its shoulder after Duke was given the final No. 1 seed, despite the Mountaineers winning the Big East Tournament. The winner of that game will likely be a heavy favorite against either Butler or Michigan State.
In order for Duke to win that game, it will have to continue to shoot well from the perimeter — which it did in the win over Baylor — and control the boards. Those tasks will be decidedly less difficult thanks to the team's depth and the trio of Jon Scheyer, Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith.
All three were among the top five scorers in the ACC this season, and Singler and Scheyer were particularly deadly from beyond the arc. But it is Smith who has put this team on his back in the last few games, making a pair of clutch threes down the stretch to ice the game against Purdue and scoring a career−high 29 points to lead his team over Baylor and help offset a disastrous 0−for−10 performance from Singler.
If the Blue Devils get all three of their main offensive options going, they will be tough to beat. Couple that with the size this team has in the likes of seven−footer Brian Zoubek and the Plumlee brothers (Mason and Miles) off the bench, and you can see that Duke will not make it easy for other teams to control the boards or dominate inside.
2. West Virginia: Huggins has turned this West Virginia team into a juggernaut in the toughest conference in the nation. Now he has a chance to prove that it is the best in the nation.
The defensive−minded Mountaineers are as tough as any team in the tournament, and they know how to win ugly. Case in point: their 69−56 win over Washington in the Sweet 16 and the 73−66 win over top−seeded Kentucky to reach the Final Four, a game that saw West Virginia go scoreless from two−point range in the first half but surprise the Wildcats by hitting eight threes to keep in it early. The Mountaineers won the game by shutting off the interior and forcing Kentucky to play from the outside, where it went 4−32 from three.
That strategy likely won't work as well against a Duke team with viable outside threats, but you can bet Huggins will have his team playing the type of defense that will frustrate the Blue Devils. And even though Duke was one of the better rebounding teams in the nation, West Virginia is terrific on the offensive glass, finishing the regular season as the second best team in the nation in that category.
As for scoring, Da'Sean Butler has not shot well, like much of his team, but has still managed to give the Mountaineers steady scoring. But West Virginia will need offense from other players, and that is where point guard Joe Mazzulla fits in.
In his first start of the season after starter Darryl "Truck" Bryant went down with a broken foot during the tournament, Mazzulla came through with a career−high 17 points. With Bryant's status uncertain, West Virginia will have to hope that Mazzulla continues to play effectively to complement the likes of Butler and Devin Ebanks if it wants to beat Duke and have a shot at earning the championship.
3. Michigan State: How does Tom Izzo do it? He has Michigan State back in the Final Four for the second consecutive year and the sixth time in the last 12 seasons. And this might have been his most impressive job yet.
Sure, Michigan State has the talent on paper to be as good as any team in the country. But the Spartans dealt with a number of injuries and close calls to make it to Indianapolis. Michigan State was nearly a victim of the dreaded 5−12 upset in the first round, barely scraping by against New Mexico State thanks to a questionable lane violation call. The Spartans also needed a buzzer−beater from Korie Lucious to beat Maryland and a free throw from Raymar Morgan in the final seconds against Tennessee in the regional final to keep their dream alive with a 70−69 win.
Still, the Spartans have been climbing a precarious slope in this tournament, and one has to wonder whether they have enough left to grind out two more victories. The concern is heightened by the loss of the team's best player in Kalin Lucas, who ruptured his Achilles tendon in the Maryland game.
Michigan State has had to deal with other health concerns, with both Delvon Roe and Chris Allen at less than 100 percent. And yet this team has still found a way to win in these close games. While Lucious has stepped up in Lucas' absence and sophomore forward Draymond Green has given Michigan State a solid presence inside, this team's success is largely due to the sudden reemergence of junior Durrell Summers.
After slumping at the end of the season and being benched in his team's 72−67 loss to Minnesota in the Big 10 Tournament, Summers has found his game again, just when the Spartans need him the most. He has been nothing short of sensational in this tournament, shooting the lights out and averaging 20 points per game over the tournament run.
For all the talk that Huggins and Krzyzewski are sure to generate, it is Izzo who might be the best coach in Indianapolis. If he gets this version of the Spartans to cut down the nets, that will only confirm it.
4. Butler: Say hello to … well, not Cinderella per se, but the closest thing this tournament has left to an underdog.
Any team that is riding a 24−game win streak — the Bulldogs have not lost since Dec. 22 — and came into the tournament ranked just outside the Top 10 in the Associated Press poll can't exactly be an unexpected Final Four participant. But when one sees Butler paired with the likes of Michigan State, Duke and West Virginia, it is clear that one team stands out as the unlikely participant.
Still, the Bulldogs have just as good a chance to win a championship as any of these others three teams. Coach Brad Stevens' team has the ingredients that are needed to win the title: an NBA−caliber star in Gordon Hayward, a great defense and the added benefit of virtual home−court advantage with the Butler campus situated just five miles from Lucas Oil Stadium.
Hayward has continued to make strides in his second season, leading his team with 15.5 points and 8.2 rebounds per game. Paired with experienced guard Shelvin Mack, the Bulldogs have a duo that can match up with any other team. But it is defensively where Stevens' squad has made its mark. Butler's man−to−man defense has been sensational all season long, holding opponents to under 60 points per game and flummoxing the likes of Syracuse.
There is a reason that Butler has been involved in these low−scoring affairs, and it has been able to dictate the tempo of the game and make other teams play to its style throughout this tournament, helping it earn a few upsets along the way.
Butler avoided the upset bug early, dominating the second half against UTEP in its first game and clipping Murray State to reach the Sweet 16. The Bulldogs then took down two of the tournament favorites in No. 1 seeded Syracuse and No. 2 seed Kansas State, making their trip back home include a shot at a national title.
The Bulldogs will have the advantage in crowd support in Indianapolis, much like Saturday's foe Michigan State did last season in Detroit, and any nonpartisan fans could give Butler added support. We will see on Saturday whether that is enough to propel the Bulldogs to two more upsets and an unprecedented national championship.
