Final Four Wrap

By Jason Chatraw
Sunday Paper Sports Editor

ATLANTA -- It was promised to be one of the greatest Final Four fields ever assemebled--four teams with 30 or more wins, four storied programs, four vocal fan bases. But it turned out to be one big joke ... for Florida, that is.

What's hard to figure out is why Florida wasn't an overly impressive team. Their body of work for the past two seasons in repeating as champions was certainly impressive, but the way they did it wasn't. They just simply outshot, outhustled, outharrassed, outplayed and outwitted their opponents.

All throughout the tournament, I kept thinking that Florida was going to come out flat against a good team and lose. And it never happened. After they came out flat against UCLA (the Gators didn't hit a shot from the field until the 12:25 mark of the first half)--and still smoked the Bruins--I concluded that Ohio State didn't have a prayer.

Joakim Noah, who looks like Steve Urkel on speed going to the hoop, was all smiles after the game and began his poetic waxing. "It's all about livin' in the moment, just like coach taught us to do," he said after flatly refusing to divulge his plans for next season. The junior forward/center has the personality for the NBA, but does he have the game? Only time will tell just how effective he'll be at the next level, but he's definitely got some crazy hair.

MORE GAME NOTES
To read more game notes, check out the piece I wrote for SLAMonline.

NCAA SEEDING CONSPIRACY
When the seeds were first announced this year, the NCAA selection committee looked like they were sky high on Rock Star energy drink. How they justified putting some of the teams in the tournament escapes all logic. Take Stanford, for example. The Cardinal looked like they didn't even belong in the NIT after their poor performance, pushing out some more deserving teams.

However, the biggest mystery to me is how the ACC managed to get seven teams into the field. Just because Duke has a down year doesn't mean the ACC is down--but this year it was true. Only UNC had a good team, while the rest of the conference was just "eh." Meanwhile, the SEC, obviously the best conference in the nation per their NCAA performance and the total domination by Florida, only managed to get five teams in. How could this be?

While most people comment about how the NCAA gets a huge payday with March Madness (I was thinking that knowing that people paid $160 dollars to sit in the upper deck 100 yards away from the court in the Georgia Dome this weekend), they are gravely mistaken. All the money is distributed to the conferences that participate. However, the way the monies are distributed opens the door for conspiracy theories.

Each team earns one unit for appearing in the tournament, with teams capable of earning up to four additional units for each victory (It ends after the teams reach the Final Four). However, the units are calculated for the previous six seasons. So when the Colonial Athletic Association was receiving just over the NCAA's $1 million and some change minimum paycheck for its one-team appearances, the run by George Mason nearly doubled it in 2006. And it will remain doubled (over $2 million) until 2006 is no longer factored into the equation.

But this is where my semi-, half-hearted conspiracy theory comes in. With Florida and the SEC owning the tournament over the past couple of years, the NCAA is in danger of watching one conference collect potentially millions more than its sisters of the poor brethren. So, the SEC's chances of earning more cash was reduced by reducing the teams that received bids. But it didn't matter too much, as the SEC earned 13 units for this year's tournament with its paltry five teams, upping its share after an 11-unit year (2001) is dropped for the next distribution.

With the SEC already running away from the pack in every sport that fans care about, I'm assuming the NCAA wants to make sure they don't take all the money with them.