Louisville 82, Michigan 76: My Top 10 CBS Contemplations
10. Michigan sub Spike Albrecht scored 67 points all season. Then he scored 17 in the first half of the National Championship. Then he failed to score in the second half. Circle of life, my friends. Circle of life.
9. In ESPN's contest that drew over 8 million competitors, the winning bracket is named "Lennay Kekua's Entry." Swear.
8. Nauseating to see all the camera shots of Michigan's "Fab Five." They are to college basketball what Moneyball is to baseball: Cute but, ultimately, unsuccessful. In our style-over-substance society, I'm ashamed to admit I can name all five Wolverines but, yet, only one player – Eric Montross – off the North Carolina team that beat them in the title game 20 years ago. Most overrated non-champ of all time: Fab Five or Phi Slamma Jamma?
7. Louisville won this game on the boards and in the paint the second half. Chane Behanan simply out-worked the Wolverines on his way to seven offensive rebounds, just one fewer than Michigan's entire team.
6. Wouldn't you just looooove to see the real footage of Shaq trying to squeeze his Kazaam ass into that Buick commercial?
5. Couple notes on Rick Pitino: He was voted into the Basketball Hall of Fame over the weekend. He's the first coach to win championships with two different schools. He owns a horse that will race in the Kentucky Derby. He promises his players he'll now get a tattoo after winning the title. His powder skin and jet black hair give him the look of a vampire. He almost pooped his panties after the game when the confetti cannons went off in the Georgia Dome. When his Kentucky Wildcats won in '96 their quirky uniforms included denim and in '13 Louisville's undershirts were camouflage. And, oh by the way, in '03 he confessed to cheating on his wife, getting a woman pregnant and paying $3,000 for her abortion. So there's that.
4. Even though they wrongly called a foul on a fantastic, clean block by Michigan's Trey Burke, the referees deserve credit for letting the kids decide this game at their own pace. And what a mesmerizing, entertaining pace it was.
3. Enjoyed watching Louisville play all year. The Cardinals lost a five-overtime game at Notre Dame in February but became legit contenders when they began their second-half blitzing and befuddling of opponents. They rallied from 16 down to beat Syracuse in the Big East title game and from 12 down to beat Wichita State in the semis and another 12 down to overcome Michigan. Louisville's pressure was relentless and it's passion resilient. Kudos.
2. Luke Hancock – a bearded white dude who didn't start for Louisville – was the Final Four's Most Outstanding Player after scoring 20+ in both wins. He's the first non-starter to be named MOP since at least 1939. And to think, his playing time increased only after the injury to … yep, Kevin Ware.
1. Here's hoping next year's title game is half as good as the one Monday night when the Final Four comes to Cowboys Stadium in 363 days. And here's predicting the attendance record of 74,326 will be broken in 2014.
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