Final Four lineup reflects tourney's wackiness

Image by RMTip21 via Flickr

By DAVID BARRON
Copyright 2010 Houston Chronicle
March 28, 2010, 11:41PM

Duke, West Virginia, Butler and Michigan State represent a well-balanced Final Four, in an unbalanced sort of way.

In the first of Saturday's semifinals at Indianapolis, Butler and Michigan State will be the first No. 5 seeds to compete in the Final Four since the 2005 Spartans. Never before have two No. 5 seeds advanced to the NCAA Tournament semifinals.

Saturday's nightcap will match Duke, which on Selection Sunday was considered the most tenuous of the NCAA Tournament's No. 1 seeds (albeit now the only one to make the Final Four), and West Virginia was the team most frequently cited by pundits as overlooked for a top seed.

So the teams are well-matched, even if the brackets are slightly out of whack as this unpredictable Tournament reaches the final stretch.

“It's one of those years where everybody thought it would be a little wacky and a little crazy in the preliminary rounds,” CBS Sports analyst Clark Kellogg said. “But we have a No. 1 and a No. 2 seed. We have a Butler team that is as impressive defensively as I've seen, and we have a similar team in Michigan State.”

Butler probably is the top seed on the wacky index as the smallest school (with about 3,900 undergraduates) to make the Final Four in more than 30 years and as the only school to play a Final Four in its home town since UCLA won the 1972 title at the Los Angeles Sports Arena.

The Bulldogs, however, enter with 24 consecutive victories and the aura of destiny's darling. It is an appropriate role, given that Butler's Hinkle Fieldhouse hosted the 1954 Indiana high school championship game in which Milan defeated powerhouse Muncie — the game that inspired the film Hoosiers.

“They have two legitimate stars in (Gordon) Hayward (who had 22 points with nine rebounds in the regional final against Kansas State) and Shelvin Mack (who had 16),” Kellogg said.

“They have two legitimate stars in (Gordon) Hayward (who had 22 points with nine rebounds in the regional final against Kansas State) and Shelvin Mack (who had 16),” Kellogg said.

Michigan State advanced to the Final Four for the sixth time under coach Tom Izzo with a 70-69 victory over Tennessee. The Spartans are the only team from last year's Final Four to make it to Indianapolis, and they made it despite the loss of Kalin Lucas with a torn Achilles' tendon and with Delvon Roe and Chris Allen suffering from knee and foot injuries, respectively.

“Tom Izzo amazes me,” Kellogg said. “This is a team that never found itself with injuries and other factors in play, and he has them in the Final Four. ”

Under head coach and native son Bob Huggins, West Virginia is in the Final Four for the first time since Jerry West led the Mountaineers to the 1959 title game against California. Joe Mazzulla scored 17 points in replacing injured guard Darryl Bryant, who suffered a broken foot during practice Tuesday.

“Joe Mazzulla looks like a guy who can handle the ball and run the show,” Kellogg said. “They are a streaky shooting team, but they are an excellent defense and rebounding team. They don't have the explosive guard scorers like Baylor, but they have wing guys who are long and athletic and can give you problems in the basket area.”

As for Duke, which won the South Regional at Reliant Stadium, the Blue Devils proved once more against Baylor that they are cut from different stylistic cloth than most other Mike Krzyzewski teams.

Down by three at the half to the Bears, Duke won with a combination of tough defense, holding Baylor to 41.2-percent shooting in the second half, and timely rebounds (the Blue Devils were plus-six in the second half and led 43-37 for the game).

“It was our adjustments that we made in the second half, how we came out and tried to thread their zone a little more and not let the first half get to us,” center Brian Zoubek said.

“West Virginia has been through some adversity with injuries, and they play in the Big East, which is a tough game every night. It will be a tough matchup, and we will have to match their intensity.”

With two fifth-seeded teams en route to Indianapolis, this is the highest combination of seeds — at 13 — since the 2006 Final Four that did not include any No. 1 seeds and featured 11th-seeded George Mason, which was the last double-digit seed to make the Final Four.

Along with Izzo's 2005 team, Florida in 2000 and Indiana in 2002 were the other fifth seeds to advance this decade to the Final Four.

Should the Spartans or Bulldogs win the title, they would be the lowest-seeded team to do so since sixth-seeded Kansas won the 1988 championship.

david.barron@chron.com