haha you pretty much summed it up perfectly. it was hard to determine which was more embarrassing - butler's shooting or the uconn fans. while i'm glad i made it to every game, it's a little disappointing to get stuck with one of the lamest final four's in recent memory... imagine that place had it been a Texas/Kansas matchup
I was impressed by VCU fans at the championship game. They were enthusiastic even though there team lost
The all final four team was a crock of sheeyat. Matt Howard and Shelvin Mack did not deserve a spot. Both are good players, but got nutted on when it counted. Give those spots to Alex Oriakhi and Shabazz Napier.
If you're only judging by this Final Four, I can see where you're coming from, but you should keep in mind this was, other than VCU-Butler a terrible showcase. UConn played C- ball and somehow won, thanks to playing two teams that were wretched in the big moment. Duke going AWOL against Arizona sent the universe out of sync...maybe VCU giving the shocker up the Jayhawk too. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone say that the best team in the country was decided by this Final Four. Kentucky represents the growing element within the NCAA that I can't stomach: a crooked, all recruiting, no coaching Calipari shamelessly purchasing one-and-done phenoms with a promise not to bog them down with any teaching. Both at Memphis and now with Kentucky, it's "Where's Waldo" looking for any halfcourt sets or designed plays with his teams. I keep saying it: I want the NBA to save the NCAA - scholarship players are ineligible for the draft for 3 years. One and done types can go play in the NBDL (give each squad an unguaranteed $200k salary exception). Let's go back to guys learning the game over the course of a few years and get teams again. VCU played great ball. Easily the best defense in the games. They just went cold enough, Butler got hot enough, and they were at a disadvantage on the boards. Why? Saturday Reliant was blanketed with UK fans. VCU and Butler fans were energetic, but only so many of them. UConn's sections were embarrassing. The second UK went down, I knew we were in for a lower turnout, low energy crowd and that the game itself would be under major pressure to bring out the excitement (instead, we got treated to the worst played championship in the history of the Final Four). 80% of Reliant was pro-Butler...but they were silenced by the ultimate failwreck. It was a perfect storm. Matt Howard definitely has no business being on it - he was owned in both games. Mack saved Butler when he got so white hot in the second half against VCU, I'm not against him making the list. Skeen earned it. Walker earned it Saturday, Lamb did well enough both games to stick. I'd consider adding in Terrence Jones, myself.
So you want the NBA to save the NCAA by restricting kids from earning millions that they are eligible to earn for an additional two years?
The NBA should make it two years. I hate the one-and-dones. Would be better for them to just go straight to the NBA.
The most excitement I saw in the second half was when a player (I'm assuming he was from Kentucky - Brandon Knight maybe?) came out and sat in the Kentucky section.
Well, those are two separate issues, but yes. In fact, the pay issue is exactly why I said the NBDL teams should be given ~$200k exceptions. Currently, the max salary in the D League is minimum wage: $20 to $25k. Not a reasonable alternative for nearly-NBA ready kids, especially when crooked boosters are offering them ten times that to sign up for their school. Funnel the phenoms that direction (15-18 a year, I'd consider that the full allotment), pay them, let them sign with agents and get marketing deals and the loans that cause all the recruiting violations in college. Push a couple personal finance courses on them if you want, but free them from fixed SAT scores and academic fraud. I don't think young athletes should be forced to go to college and I don't think it's right how the NCAA exploits them for profit. Let the NCAA be more about the student athletes. The 3- and 4-year players. UNC, Duke, Kansas type basketball. Team play, smart play. Let fans get to know their guys for more than 20 games. And no one's stopping the one and dones from playing...but don't give a kid a scholarship to go to a university for a semester and a half. That's an insult to higher education. Those scholarships are supposed to go to someone with the intent of getting an education.
My first time at the championship game, I didn't realize the lower bowl tickets were included for both games. And yes it felt awkward seeing Kentucky and VCU here and there even though they didn't seem interested at all but more like they had no choice but to show up. Alot different from what the television displays I guess.
Pretty cool, fan cam caught a 360 degree picture of reliant stadium right before tip off. It has the ability to zoom in to see faces all the way in the upper deck. http://www.replayphotos.com/fancam/ncaa-basketball-tournament-championship-110404.cfm
http://houston.culturemap.com/newsd...ncaa-officials-expect-it-to-become-a-regular/ Houston in line to get more Final Fours after 2016: NCAA officials expect it to become a regular By Chris Baldwin April 5th, 2011 When even NCAA officials are making jokes about the lowest-scoring NCAA Championship Game since 1949, you know they had a good time in Houston. That's what happens in the Final Four wrap-up press conference Tuesday. Greg Shaheen — the highest-ranking NCAA official in the room — opens his portion with a crack about the offensive woes Monday night. Shaheen notes that if more people had the motor shown by Houston Final Four Local Organizing Committee interim executive director Doug Hall then "we might have had a game last night where both teams scored 60 points." "You were on overdrive," Shaheen says to Hall. Yes, there is a whole lot of love in the room when the Houston LOC and the NCAA meet for the last time before this 2011 Final Four becomes part of the record books — and thoughts begin to slowly turn to the 2016 Final Four that will be held in Houston and the 2015 regional at Reliant Stadium before that. It does not figure to end in 2016 though. Shaheen — the NCAA's interim executive vice president of championships and alliances — tells CutureMap he expects there will be even more Final Fours in Houston in the future. "I don't see any reason why Houston wouldn't become a regular part of our rotation," Shaheen says. Shaheen would be the first to say that the NCAA's Basketball Committee will make the final call like usual on future sites, but he says the committee is thrilled with Houston's performance. "This is what a showcase event should look like," Shaheen says of a Houston event that set the Final Four record for total attendance (145,747 at the two nights of games) and also drew an estimated 140,000 to the Big Dance Concert Series (the concert figure is based on an "approximation" of the number of people who came through Discovery Green during all three concerts that lasted several hours each) and another 49,000 to Bracket Town at the George R. Brown Convention Center. "This is what a national championship should feel like. "It should be exhausting the next morning and be a seamless effort." Later Shaheen quips, "UConn is not the only winner here." Instead, Texas might be the biggest winner of all. For the Lone Star State has emerged as the NCAA's big event darling. Texas will host three Final Fours in a six-year stretch (Houston in 2011 and 2016, Dallas in 2014). And that type of dominance is not expected to end anytime soon either. "In the modern era, for both the men's and women's championships, I don't know that any state has emerged like Texas," Shaheen says. "And I think you have to include San Antonio (host of the 1998, 2004 and 2008 Final Fours) in that equation as well. There are a lot of things Texas offers the championships that are unique." Standing off to the side in the ballroom at the Hyatt Regency — which served as the headquarters for the coaches convention during Final Four week, housing all the big names who weren't coaching in the games — Robert Dale Morgan is sure of what makes Houston such a lure. Morgan, the president and executive director of the 2011 Houston Final Four LOC, held a similar position for Houston's 2004 Super Bowl and many credit his vision with helping the city see its big sports event potential, with a Super Bowl, Major League Baseball All-Star Game, NBA All-Star Game, Major League Soccer All-Star Game and now a Final Four all having been held here since 2004. Not that Morgan wants that recognition. He chooses to sit in the crowd rather than on the stage at the wrap-up press conference. He probably could have blended in to, wearing a Houston Final Four hat with his suit, if so many people on the stage didn't point him out. Bob Beauchamp, chairman of the Houston Final Four LOC, calls Morgan, "the best in the business." "Having six million people who care," Morgan says in explaining how Houston's positioned itself as the host city with the most. "Having a dozen Fortune 500 companies. And oh by the way, we have really great weather 300 days out of the year." Trash Talk Between Friends Houston hands off the Final Four to New Orleans, next year's host. The transition is a bit of intentional symbolism by the NCAA which wants to recognize how closely the two cities are linked and the Bayou City's role in helping after Hurricane Katrina. This will be the fifth Final Four that New Orleans has hosted and the city's LOC executive director John Koerner can't help but point out to Houston, the new city in "the rotation," how great every one of the NCAA Championship Games held in the Big Easy has been. "New Orleans has hosted some of the most memorable finals ever," Koerner says. "We had Michael Jordan's shot, Keith Smart's shot, Chris Webber's infamous timeout and Hakim Warrick's block at the buzzer." And from its first Final Four, Houston has? Well, a whole lot of clangs — and Butler's record-low 18.8 percent shooting. Not that anyone in the NCAA is holding it against the Bayou City. The organization credentialed 1,387 media members for this Final Four, loved the visibility brought about by having it in one of the America's biggest cities. Even if you have to wonder how much everyone was into it locally. The TV rating in Houston for the unsightly Butler-UConn national championship game only ranked 30th out of the 56 major media markets. Shaheen's not dwelling on that. Instead, he's sticking around Houston to take in more of the city without the pressures of the mega event. "I don't have a flight home," Shaheen says, knowing that Southwest Airlines' grounded jets have made it much harder than usual to land one last minute. "So I'll be staying here two, three, four, five more days. I may be looking to get an apartment and just become a resident." Shaheen laughs. Who says NCAA suits don't have a sense of humor? When they are happily in Houston, they sure do.
