Final Four: Who's going to come out on top?
(CBS News) It's college basketball's biggest night, the Final Four. The schools will battle it out Saturday night in Atlanta with the two winners advancing to Monday night's national championship game.
The Louisville Cardinals, ranked No. 1 overall, made it to the Final Four despite the injury to freshman Kevin Ware.
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In the first game of the night they'll meet this tournament's last true underdogs, Wichita State's aptly named Shockers. It's the school's first Final Four appearance in the last 48 years.
CBS Sports Network analysts Jon Rothstein and Mateen Cleaves explained on "CBS This Morning: Saturday" that their brackets were both changed by the Shockers' movement into the Final Four.
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"This is not a David-and-Goliath-type showdown. I think if you've followed Wichita State really over the last couple of years, they've proven that they're good enough to play and beat BCS-level competition. But, the bar gets significantly raised against Louisville," Rothstein said.
"Louisville has been the runaway train throughout the entire month of March, and I think the one thing that we have to look at coming into April is that the injury we saw last week, Louisville had with Kevin Ware, drastically changes their team because they don't have a perimeter sub right now for their starting guards Peyton Siva and Russ Smith," said Rothstein. "Louisville is still the prohibitive favorite but their depth on the perimeter vastly changes."
In the second game of the night, two perennial basketball powers will match up; the Big Ten's Michigan Wolverines will take on the Orange of Syracuse.
"One thing I think you look at in this game is it is a perfect matchup when you look at Michigan's offensive personnel against Syracuse's tenacious 2-3 zone. Michigan when they're at their best is the best offensive team in college basketball, but Syracuse defensively in the NCAA tournament has been off the charts, so it's a fascinating, fascinating matchup," Rothstein said.
The Big East powerhouse is going for its second national championship before moving to the rival ACC next season.
Both analysts predicted that Louisville will win the championship.
"I've got Louisville. That's the most talented team. They got here last year so I think Louisville will cut the nets down," Cleaves said.
Final Four action begins on CBS at 6 p.m. ET with Louisville taking on Wichita State, followed at 9 ET by Michigan versus Syracuse, with the winners going to the NCAA championship game Monday night, also on CBS.