Final Four Preview

I'm anxious but confident going into tonight's Carolina game versus Louisville.   The Cardinals looked pretty good in taking down Tennessee, but their back court was shaky in that game.  And that's where I see the Heels winning tonight's game. Lawson, Ellington, Thomas, Green and Graves will be too much for Louisville to stop.  

Padgett may play Hansbrough to a standstill, but I don't see that happening. Padgett is probably as strong as Hansbrough but Tyler is much more athletic.  Look for Psycho T to repeatedly beat Padgett down the floor to his spot. Ditto Deon and Stephenson.   Louisville likes to run but there is no way for their big people to run with our people. So if Louisville does choose to run with UNC the Heels will win going away.

[I wanted to run a photo of Lawson here, but love this photo of Hanbrough from Insidecarolina.com too much not to share.]

There is some intrigue with this game.  One, Padgett was recruited by ol' Roy to go to Kansas.  When he finally took the Carolina job Padgett transfered to Louisville after one year in Lawrence.  Roy was quoted all over the place yesterday as saying "I could understand if he felt betrayed by me" when discussing Padgett.  A good non-defensive quote from Roy who sometimes can sound remarkably unDeanesque at these press conferences.

Two, Carolina plays Louisville twice today, as the women play at noon in the sweet 16.  The Heels should go to the Final Four of the women's tourney, too, and hopefully will pull a UConn and win both titles this year.  That almost happened in the 90s when the men won in '93 and the women in '94.

Other NCAA Notes

• Generally bad games last night. As good as Davidson looked in beating Wisconsin, Kansas looked that much better.  Beating Wisconsin is not that big of an upset but taking down Kansas would be.   I can't see that happening.  Kansas is the team that scares me the most of the eight teams left.
• Then again, Kansas was playing against the weakest team in the sweet 16 in Villanova.
• Man, was I wrong about Michigan State. I thought they could hang with and beat Memphis, but the Tigers ran the Spartans off the court in the last nine minutes of the first half.  Michigan State went from 'tough and smart Tom Izzo team' to 'overmatched Big 10 squad' in less than 10 minutes. And though they are playing in Houston I expect Memphis to beat Texas.   I just have no faith in Rick Barnes, even against a poser like John Calipari.
• Stanford looked as bad as Michigan State, probably worse, in losing to Texas.  For a bunch of guys who are supposed to be smart they took a million dumb shots.  How hard is it to get the ball down low?  I guess it's harder than I thought; Stanford, Georgetown and Wisconsin haven't done it the last two weekends. 
• UCLA and Xavier will be a good game. I don't want to pick UCLA but it's hard to bet against Kevin Love. Both of those squads remind of Carolina in that neither team seems capable of losing. UCLA played terribly against Texas A&M but made enough plays to win. Ditto Xavier against West Virginia; the Mountaineers had two chances to win that game at the free throw line but didn't.  Conversely, each time the Musketeers needed to make a play, they did.  Should be a great game - if you like games in the 50s. 
• Another good column from Feinstein in today's Post on ways to improve the NCAA tournament.  He's the only Dookie having a good March.  All his recent columns, especially his one on the ACC's post-football problems, have been on point.
• Finally, interesting to look at who's left in the elite 8: two Big 12 teams (Texas and Kansas) then one each from the ACC, Big East (Louisville), Pac 10 (UCLA) and 3 from 'lesser' conferences like the Atlantic 10 (Xavier), Conference USA (Memphis), and the Southern (Davidson).  Some folks know this, but the ACC was carved out of the Southern conference in the late 50s.