Four Teams, One Championship

             With the month of March drawing towards a close, the 2013-2014 NCAA Men’s Basketball season is also coming to an end as well. This year “March Madness” lived up to its name with multiple upsets, overtime games, and last minute game-winning shots. The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament has come down to the Final Four; these four teams will be playing this Saturday to see who will be going to play for the 2013-2014 NCAA National Championship. The #1 overall seed Florida Gators will play against the #7 seed Connecticut Huskies and the #2 seed Wisconsin Badgers will play against the #8 seed Kentucky Wildcats.

         The Florida Gators are going into their game against UConn with a 30-game win streak. This Gators team has handled all of their opponents with ease in the tournament so far. They have not lost since December 2^nd of last year. Ironically, the Gators last loss came against the UConn Huskies, 65-64. Its four starting seniors in Scottie Wilbekin, Casey Prather, Will Yuegete, and Patric Young head this Gators team along with sophomore Michael Frazier II. This Gators team has relied on its suffocating defense, its power and size down low in the paint with Young along having multiple shooters on this team.

         The Connecticut Huskies come into this game on hot streak after knocking off the Virginia Cavaliers in the Sweet 16 and the Michigan State Spartans in the Elite 8, who were considered one of the teams that could potentially win it all. This UConn Huskies team is not as strong depth wise as the Florida Gators. Although, the Huskies do have a player that does it all in senior Shabazz Napier who lead the team in points, rebounds, and assists in the regular season. Under second year head coach Kevin Ollie, Napier and his teammates will look to carry this Huskies team past the Florida Gators and into the NCAA National Championship.

         The Wisconsin Badgers will be playing in their first Final Four since 2000. This will also be the first Final Four appearance for head coach Bo Ryan who has been coaching at Wisconsin since 2001. This Badgers team brings athleticism and has one of the toughest defenses in men’s college basketball this season. To get into the Final Four, the Badgers had to defeat freshman sensation Aaron Gordon and the Arizona Wildcats. They were able to pull off the close win lead by 7-foot junior Frank Kaminsky’s 28 points and 11 rebounds. Kaminsky will be a key for the Badgers to get the win this Saturday, but sophomore Sam Dekker will be a factor as well averaging 12 points and 6 rebounds per game. The Badgers go into this weekend with not only size and athleticism on their side, but also great coaching.

         The Kentucky Wildcats were not one of the projected teams to make this far into the NCAA Tournament. After seemingly falling apart down the stretch of the regular season, the Wildcats began to pull together in the SEC Tournament. The Wildcats’ wins so far in this tournament have been nothing less than great. Three of their last four wins have been against teams that made it to the Final Four last year (Wichita State in the Round of 32; Louisville in the Sweet 16; Michigan in the Elite 8). This Wildcats team has the most talented group of freshman since the 1991 “Fab Five” Michigan freshman class. The difference between those two freshmen recruitment classes is that the Kentucky Wildcats have the potential to win it all. Among these talented freshmen is NBA prospect Julius Randle, who leads the team in points and rebounds with 15.1 points per game and 10.5 rebounds per game.

         Personally, I have the Florida Gators winning it all thus winning their first national championship since 2007. The potential of an all-SEC National Championship game is a definite possibility. The experienced Florida Gators versus the young Kentucky Wildcats for a fourth time in the same season, but this time for all something much bigger. If this becomes the match-up that happens, then all the talk of the SEC just being a just strong football conference will be put to rest and the attention towards being a strong basketball conference as well will be in discussion.