NCAA TOURNAMENT: FINAL FOUR

The Final Four is finally here. Now that almost all of our bracket's are in shambles (Thanks Kansas & Syracuse) lets analyze the two games being played on Saturday. The first match-up is Butler v. Michigan State. Two 5 seeds coming out of their respected regions. For those of you who don't know much about Butler, the Butler Campus is 6 miles away from Lucas Oil Stadium, which is home to this year's Final Four. Butler is also on a 24 game winning streak, the longest active streak in Division 1 basketball. They also play the best defense I've seen all tournament long. Although these are intriguing attributes, I believe that Michigan State will win this match-up. Butler star player Gordon Hayward is averaging less points and rebounds during the tournament then the regular season. Their coach, Brad Steven's has never been to a Final Four and lacks experience that Michigan State coach Tom Izzo has an abundance of. Izzo is one of the best, if not the best coach in college basketball. His teams never have the best talent, but he gets the best out of his players. Durrell Summers is the catalyst for the Spartans run to the Final Four. He has averaged 20 ppg in the tournament. A big step up from his 11.2 ppg during the regular season. He's also stepped up his three point percentage from 53% during the tournament, as opposed to his 36% in the regular season. Despite losing starting point guard Kalin Lucas in the second round of the tournament, the Spartans haven't let that slow them down and I believe they will win on Saturday. Also, for those of you who forgot, check out Durrell Summers' dunk last year during the Final Four on Stanley Robinson. CLICK HERE!

In the second match-up we have West Virginia v. Duke. College basketball fan's could've picked this final four match-up much easier than Butler v. Michigan State. West Virginia won the Big East Tournament while Duke won the ACC regular season and post season. West Virginia beat Morgan State, a very good Missouri team, a late Surging Washington team which won the Pac-10 Tournament, and an extremely talented Kentucky team, who had only lost two games the whole season, prior to their Elite 8 game. Duke has had an easy road to the final four, knocking off Arkansas Pine-Bluff, the winners of the "play-in game" a.k.a. the most pointless game in the tournament, California, who won the regular season in a very weak Pac-10 conference, Purdue, who was without their star player Robbie Hummel, and most recently a very good Baylor team, who got the raw end of the deal because of a horrible charge call on Quincy Acy, which changed the dynamic of the game. If Brian Zoubek of Duke was charged with a block instead of the awful charge call, he would've fouled out and Baylor would've been on the line for a chance to put them up by 5. Instead the call gives Duke the ball, and Zoubek stays in the game to grab offensive rebounds over the shorter Baylor players. With that being said, Duke is in the Final Four and is matched up against their hardest opponent yet. West Virginia has a surplus of talent, plus a great set of role players. Da'Sean Butler is WV's star player. Butler can play any position on the floor, which is especially key since starting Point Guard Darryl Bryant went down with an injury to his right foot in the second game of the tournament. Kevin Jones is a 3-point specialist who's averaged more than 40% from three on the season. Devin Ebanks is a lanky forward who leads the team in rebounding and is also a great defender. These three players are the core for this West Virginia team, not to mention a great supporting cast of Joe Mazzula, Wellington Smith, and John Flowers. Duke is led by a trio of players as well. Kyle Singler, a wiry 6'8 forward who has shot the three at 39.1% for the season. Jon Scheyer, a guard who also shoots the three very well at 38.1% on the season, and is the leading scorer at 18.2 ppg. And last but not least, Nolan Smith who leads this amazing three point shooting team in 3-point % at 39.6%. The Blue Devils have proven against Baylor that they don't need all three players to put up a lot of points. Kyle Singler was 0-10 from the field and ended with 5 points, but Duke still walked away with the win. Duke also has a number of role players that have come up big as of late, Brian Zoubek and Lance Thomas were great on the offensive boards against Baylor. This is a very tough match-up to call, but I believe that the superior conference will win and West Virginia will be playing Michigan State for a national championship on Monday.