Here's a confession a long time coming. I think I'm turning around on this whole March Madness thing. I think all it took was the greatest Final Four matchup ever.
I have long been the NCAA Tournament agnostic in my orbit of friends and acquaintances, which is seen as especially strange, akin to a modern scarlet letter, for someone in my line of work. A sportswriter being ambivalent to the Big Dance is sort of like someone who is into both drinking and partying yet doesn't ''get'' Mardi Gras.
They look at you funny.
Don't get it wrong. I'm not a hater by a mile. I follow the annual drama; it's not like I thought Billy Packer was a football mascot in Green Bay. It's just that I've never been enamored of filling out brackets, or the swooning over a sneakered Cinderella.
Maybe part of it is the losing effort trying to make rational sense of Dick Vitale's astonishing, unsettling habit of answering every question by literally shouting his reply.
I shudder to think this might be his off-air persona as well.
Mrs. Vitale: ``Dick, would you pass the salt please?''
Dick Vitale: ``ABSOLUTELY. HE PASSES THE SALT! MRS. V TAKES THE SHAKER, PULLS UP AND DRAINS A THREE! AWESOME BAYBEEEEEEE!!!''
For me, too many things have been annoying, like the ''play-in'' game to whittle the field from 65 to 64. If that many teams make your tournament -- bulletin -- it isn't selective enough! I dunno, but maybe the winner of the Mideastern South Dakota Athletic Conference doesn't deserve an automatic bid, after all.
The fact the lowest-seeded teams (15th and 16th) under the current format have an all-time tournament record of 4-192 (seriously) indicates the field could be pared without losing anything but the charming, intensely American pretense that the smallest underdogs have their chance.
The Cinderella Theory is a fallacy. Not to blaspheme, but Holy Gonzaga! The only two double-digit seeds to reach the Final Four in the past 30 years were a pair of 11s: LSU in 1986 and George Mason in 2006. Not since sixth-seeded Kansas won it all in 1988 has a seed below No. 4 reigned.
This year, the sweet pretender was 10th-seeded and fittingly named Davidson. Alas, the slingshot took true aim, but the stone caromed off Goliath, who didn't feel it. Sayonara, Cinderella! What's the fascination with underdogs, anyway? In no other line of endeavor do we so aggrandize the luck and pluck of the underachiever. In a culinary Final Four, I want the four best chefs. I don't want the three best chefs and a home cook who caught lightning with a casserole.
This is the beauty of this Final Four.
In North Carolina vs. Kansas and Memphis vs. UCLA we get four teams whose combined record is a surreal 143-9, and who have together won 51 consecutive games entering Saturday's semifinals.
Savor those numbers just another second.
This isn't just the first time all four No. 1 regional seeds made the Final Four -- there have only been three No. 1s make it three times, last in 1999 -- but it also is the first time four conference champions (regular season and conference) made it.
These also were the top-four teams in both major preseason polls, making them virtually wire-to-wire for excellence. Four basketball schools, too.
UCLA, North Carolina and Kansas are men's hoops powers with a combined 17 national championships from 48 Final Four appearances. Only Kentucky has more NCAA Tournament invites and victories.
Memphis is the historic neophyte of the quartet but is making its third consecutive drive into the Elite Eight or better and swamped Texas 85-67 in the last round.
Bless this Final Four and its lack of an underdog if only because we won't have to put up with players in need of self-motivation blathering about how ''nobody expected us to be here'' or ''we've been disrespected all season.'' Uh oh. Not this time.
In fact, stars Chris Douglas-Roberts and Derrick Rose make Memphis, by most reckoning, a narrow pick to beat storied UCLA and the living ghost of John Wooden, while in the other semifinal North Carolina is a close call over Kansas, with UNC coach Roy Williams facing the Jayhawks program he led for 19 years.
(By the way, watch the point guard Rose with a discerning eye, as you might be seeing him dishing to Dwyane Wade on the Heat hardwood in about six months. There is little question Rose will opt early for the NBA Draft, or that Pat Riley would love to have him -- probably second to Kansas State's Michael Beasley.)
Consensus is a rarity across all our major team sports. Unusual is the year in which fans arrive at a championship game convinced the two best teams are in it, or leave said game convinced the best team won it.
So seldom do we get what this NCAA Final Four is giving us: the unadulterated, unequivocal, indisputable best.
An NBA Finals hasn't matched the two best teams based on overall season records since Bulls-Jazz in 1998. That last happened in the World Series in strike-shortened 1995, with Indians vs. Braves. It has been 17 years since a Super Bowl between the teams that stood alone with the league's best records. That was Redskins-Bills in 1991. The Stanley Cup Finals last had that in 1989 with Calgary-Montreal.
And major college football, of course, remains famous for its lack of resolution even in the era of the Bowl Championship Series, which is supposed to present the two best teams in the final but rarely does except by the shakiest consensus.
That won't be the case in San Antonio culminating March Madness. Whichever of these teams wins a second game in three days on Monday night will have made history and be undisputed champion.
Cinderella is neither here, nor missed.
You can have the ``feel good.''
I'll take the real good.
