Larry Brown Sports

Northern Arizona coach Mike Adras was the only voter in the ESPN/USA Today poll not to vote tournament champion UConn the number one team in the final poll of the season. Instead, Adras voted Ohio State number one and Kansas second in his ballot, followed by UConn.

Explaining his decision, Adras said “I voted for who I thought was the best team in the country based on the entire body of work during the season. I believe it is Ohio State. I want to congratulate Connecticut for winning the NCAA tournament. They deserved it.”

The 30 other voters in the coaches’ poll put UConn first followed by Butler, and Kentucky. The other Final Four participant, VCU, ended up sixth in the final poll, with Ohio State and Kansas ahead of them.

Adras must be reading LBS because we wrote the exact same thing a week ago saying none of the Final Four teams deserved to be the national champion. Was UConn the best team in the country? I still say no. Was Butler the second best team? Far from it. And was Kentucky the third best? Were all these teams better than Ohio State or Kansas? Not in my eyes, and I’m glad at least one person was thinking outside the box and voted accordingly.

This post will have an extremely bitter tone and it’s because I picked Ohio State to win the entire tournament. The Buckeyes only lost twice in the regular season and seemed to have every key ingredient necessary to succeed in March. But after blowing out their first two opponents, they got bounced by a Kentucky squad that played lock-down defense.

DeAndre Liggins and Josh Harrelson deserve tons of credit for stepping up for the Wildcats and leading them to victory, but it still hurts me to see a team that went 32-2 in the regular season end up as a failure. What stings even more is that they were eliminated by an eight-loss team, but that’s the nature of the tournament, like it or love it.

In a single-game elimination style, it’s win or go home and teams can’t afford to have off games, which is exactly what happened with the Buckeyes.

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With Pitt knocking off Syracuse at home Monday night, college hoops is down to only three unbeaten teams 5-6 games into conference play. Ohio State and Kansas are teams people expected to be in the top five, but the surprise squad is San Diego State which is 19-0 and ranked 6th. Which of these impressive starters will be the first to lose? We take a look.

Ohio State: The Big Ten has six teams in the Top 25 including the top ranked Buckeyes. Thus far, Ohio St. has played only one of the other five ranked teams from their conference — Minnesota. In the next seven days they will host Iowa (whom they beat by only five earlier this month), travel to #22 Illinois on Saturday, and then play 13th-ranked Purdue in Columbus. In February it only gets worse with five straight games against the other ranked teams from the conference. They will be a number one seed in the tourney, but may have a bump or two along the way.

Kansas: The Jayhawks are 18-0 and 3-0 in conference. They have a better shot at remaining undefeated compared to Ohio State, given that the only ranked opponent they face in their next five games is Texas in Lawrence. Their following challenge would be 14th ranked Missouri at home on February 7th. Beware of surprising Colorado which is 14-4 after defeating Mizzou and Kansas St.

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With everyone’s focus being on the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 Games coming up, everyone may have lost site of the tournament that really matters. That’s right, well before the Final Four matchups take place, the real title game will have already been played — that of the ever-important NIT. Coming up on Tuesday, both Florida and Ohio St. will be hosting semifinal games of the NIT. These squads have been running through their respective competition throughout the tournament and seem destined to meet for the right to be crowned the 66th best team in the country. No, this isn’t a slight at either program, it’s just a fascinating nugget shared on-air by Todd Wright Wednesday evening.

How crazy would it be for both Florida and Ohio St. to meet in three straight national title games? Just because it’s the NIT doesn’t mean it doesn’t count. They met in both the basketball and football title games recently with Florida winning both games. Could this be the year Ohio State bucks the trend? Could be. I think this also means a few other things. One, it shows how difficult it is for elite programs to rebuild after losing lots of talent. Secondly, it shows that both schools have strong programs with good coaching; even if they couldn’t make the cut for the NCAA tournament, they’re still proving they can win in tournament play. Now all that’s left to be seen is which one doesn’t live up to their end of the bargain. I’m guessing they both make it.

We are only two wins away from witnessing a rematch of the college football national championship game — only in basketball. Moreover, Florida would be staring at an unprecedented third consecutive national title (in the major sports) straight in the face. Additionally, a national title would also make Florida the first school to win the national championship in both basketball and football in the same school year (they’ve already done it in the same calendar year). So what is the likelihood that we could be seeing a rematch of the BCS Championship game one week from today?

Florida is currently a 3.5 point favorite over UCLA.  The last time the teams met, Florida pimp-slapped UCLA in the championship game, taking no prisoners. Guard Lee Humphrey went 4-8 from 3pt land, Al Horford went 14 and 7, and lets not forget, Joakim Noah scored 16 points on 7 of 9 shooting, grabbed nine rebounds, and the freak also blocked 6 shots. Aside from Humphrey’s shooting spree, the Gators absolutely dominated inside, with Horford and Noah taking advantage of UCLA’s weakness.

Unfortunately for the Bruins, both Horford and Noah elected to return to school, and UCLA hasn’t exactly beefed up in the middle. Sure Mbah a Moute and Aboya are both a year older and wiser, and Mata is arguably tougher inside than Ryan Hollins was, but if Luc Richard and Lorenzo get called for three fouls prior to halftime, you can write off the Bruins and welcome the Gators to the title game once again.

Ohio St. is currently a pick ‘em against Georgetown. The Hoyas have trailed for the most part of their past three games (UNC, Vandy, and BC). It took a blown traveling call against Vandy to send G-Town to the Elite Eight, where one of the most magnificent choke jobs in the history of college basketball (UNC shooting 1 of 23 in a 15 minute span to finish the game) helped send them to the Final Four. Translation, the Hoyas have been in as many tight spots as Ohio St. recently and are lucky to be there.

One of Georgetown’s strength’s has been the play of Roy Hibbert inside. His game will more-than-likely be neutralized by the powerful Greg Oden. The x-factor then becomes the outside shooting of Ron Lewis, Daequan Cook, and Jamar Butler against that of Jonathan Wallace, DaJuan Summers, and Jeff Green. Ron Lewis and Mike Conley Jr. have been absolutely nails in the clutch, draining 3′s and FT’s when it’s mattered the most. They are battle-tested and able to take advantage of an opportunity if you leave one open. The Buckeye’s have overcome two near-death situations already, but they never cashed it in. Given the way they’ve played in the tournament, it just seems like Ohio St. is destined to reach the title game.

Once both teams pull off the with, then we can discuss whether or not Ohio St. will avenge their basketball loss to Florida in December, and their football loss in January. The beautiful thing is we have until Saturday to find out!