Five (or more) For Monday: Final Four Edition

I had fifty different headlines I was going to use for this morning’s Five For post, but none of them convey the words properly. And since the adjectives probably don’t work properly either, I will just say Good Morning Big Blue Nation. Hope you still have all your furniture and it is intact. Our fearless leader is studying intently this morning to pursue a perfect score on a test, so I shall endeavor to cover for him. And since I have not done this in a while please bear with me. My fingers are jumping from key to key like I am still celebrating. East Region Champions, has a nice ring to it doesn’t it? The much ballyhooed and vaunted Buckeyes and Tar Heels are in the rear view mirror and the Cats now set their sights on another stop for the UK Redemption Tour next Saturday night in Houston against the UCONN Huskies. And to quote the legendary Frankie Valli, I hope to be singing “Oh What A Knight” all day Sunday. So without further ado, here comes your Five. Or six or seven, depending on when I run out of words to describe this weekend. One: Congratulations are not enough for the Cats and their dismantling of both Ohio State and North Carolina in 48 hours. Arguably the toughest 2 game back to back pair of contests for anyone in the tournament not named Butler or VCU. Taking down the number one and number two seeds in your region in 3 days is simply amazing. Two: Brandon Knight getting the East Region MVP is another feather in his cap that the young man just takes in stride. We discussed how this year’s team would do against last year’s team straight up for one game. I took the side of last year’s team, but know this: Brandon Knight takes John Wall in a one gamer. He plays better defense and takes better shots. John Wall may be the greatest show on earth on the court, but for one night, Brandon gets JW and then some. I also want to say this. There were two or three others who could have taken that MVP, but Brandon played like he means business. and no one is going to keep him from being successful at his business. Three: While Brandon Knight is definitely large and in charge for these Cats, anyone within the range of my keyboard know this; Josh Harrellson and DeAndre Liggins are the Heart and Soul of this basketball team. Josh has stared down the barrel of a .12 ga shotgun two games in a row and has never batted an eye as he not just held his own against arguably the two best centers in the college game today, he made his own mark on the game, and this tournament. Go ask Sullinger and Zeller who the toughest guy they played against all year was. They’ll tell you. And the entire Big Blue Nation owes a debt of gratitude to Billy Clyde Gillispie. Whatever he told DeAndre Liggins to get him to come to Kentucky needs to be written down and framed to be placed somewhere in a place of prominence on campus. Because had John Calipari gotten DeAndre Liggins to come to Memphis when he was first recruiting him, I think Cal already has his NCAA Championship and might not have wanted to come to Kentucky. Can you imagine the kind of a player Liggins would have been with 4 years under Calipari? He would have gone down in NCAA history as the best shutdown defender in the history of the game. And he still may. And for good measure over the weekend he decided to throw in what proved to be the stake in the heart of UNC from the corner for three. DeAndre, my hat’s off to you. Four: as in Final Four. That’s where the Cats are headed for the first time in 13 years. ‘Nuff Said. Five: This has been arguably the most entertaining tournament in recent history, because of all of the upsets that have occurred, and you never really knew who was going to do what when the ball went into the air. So, was the NCAA Selection Committee right in their pairings which baffled the minds of even the most astute experts on Selection Sunday? Well, had the Cats not made it to the Final Four, my answer would have arguably been the same on this. Ken Howlett over at A Sea Of Blue, my other home, says the committee was still nuts, and I tend to agree with him. No #1 or #2 Seeds survive and advance to the Final Four., a #11 seed has played from the play-in game to the Final Four. A team that should have been a #2 seed has had to endure a path too brutal for Rocky to get to the Final Four. And the #9 team in the Big East has survived and advanced to the Final Four. Add to that, Butler is in back-to-back Final Fours and we not only have one great storyline to follow into next weekend, we have four. Some are going to say that this is what makes college basketball great, and that’s fine for a quote to go into a press conference. But everyone who was in that room knows that Ohio State and Kentucky played what should have been an incredible final in the Elite Eight. Let’s just hope that Gene Smith handles that group as mercifully as he does his Head Football Coach. Six: (told you there might be more) The University of Tennessee has hired Cuonzo Martin from Missouri State as their next head basketball coach to what can best be described as “mixed” reviews. I have to confess ignorance of much of Martin’s history myself other than he is a Purdue Alum who played and later coached under Gene Keady. Seven: (I am on a roll) We are heading into what may very well be an historical weekend for not only Coach Calipari and this group of “Unimaginables”, but also the Big Blue Nation as well. Yes, it has been 13 years. And yes, it is so much sweeter this year because of what this team has had to endure to get here. But, should the Cats pull off the sweep of the tournament and win #8, let’s all try to act with a little more class than some folks did last night. Burning your furniture?? In the middle of the street?? I mean, if it’s really cold outside and you are trying to keep warm, hey, I got your back. But burning things just for the sake of burning them smacks of a lesser group of fans than the BBN. Let’s all try to remember that we have been there before. Even if some of us cannot remember it.

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