FanHouse JeromeDyson

This is a thank-you note.

On behalf of basketball fans everywhere, thank you, Missouri, for a brilliant run and a tough, impressive effort against Connecticut in the regional final. You gave us a great game to watch, and you really made the Huskies earn their way into the Final Four. And everybody should have to earn their way into the Final Four.

The way this thing started, it looked like a rout. UConn raced to that huge early lead, and you figured, "Oh well. Mismatch."

But then a funny thing happened. Missouri didn't go away.

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GLENDALE, Ariz. -- The questions, gentle and revolving around basketball, were over, and most of the media had scrambled out of the room when Jim Calhoun, still sitting at the podium, cleared his throat.

"I have one thing to say," said the Connecticut coach, grabbing the microphone, and this time his voice sounded authoritative, confident, as if he had finally come to grips with the scandal banging at his front door. Calhoun proceeded to announce that at 7:00 Thursday morning, roughly 12 hours before the Huskies put the finishing touches on a 72-60 win over Purdue in the NCAA West Regional, he had spoken by phone with UConn athletic director Jeff Hathaway -- a conversation Calhoun characterized as "very fruitful."

GLENDALE, AZ -- The questions, gentle and revolving around basketball, were over, and most of the media had scrambled out of the room when Jim Calhoun, still sitting at the podium, cleared his throat.

"I have one thing to say," said the Connecticut coach, grabbing the microphone, and this time his voice sounded authoritative, confident, as if he had finally come to grips with the scandal banging at his front door. Calhoun proceeded to announce that at 7:00 Thursday morning, roughly 12 hours before the Huskies put the finishing touches on a 72-60 win over Purdue in the NCAA West Regional, he had spoken by phone with UConn athletic director Jeff Hathaway -- a conversation Calhoun characterized as "very fruitful."

The NCAA tournament is just one day away, so FanHouse writers and editors got together to talk over each region. The Midwest Region got the ball rolling, followed by the East. The South looks like it could go to the top seeds, but what about the West? Here is the last installment of our NCAA FanHouse Roundtables.

Chris Burke: Unlike the other three regions, where it's the top seeds' bracket to lose, UConn may not have the same stranglehold over things due to Jerome Dyson's injury. The Huskies have lost two straight and are just 4-3 since Dyson hurt his knee, so they look, to me, like the most vulnerable of all the No. 1 seeds. It doesn't help that, after the first round, they may not have another easy game. The other six teams in the top-half of this bracket can be considered threats, from Washington right on down to Mississippi State and Northern Iowa.

Ranking the rankings criticizes the critics when the polls come out.

Headlining: The beauty of a Tuesday column, at least this season, is that whoever ends up No. 1 can do so with an asterisk based on Monday's games. (*In case you didn't know already, Pittsburgh beat Connecticut.) And it appears that next week, we'll likely have a new No. 1 team in the nation. That will likely be Blake Griffin and the Oklahoma Sooners. Which is fitting, considering Griffin dropped a rediculous 40-point, 23-rebound Valentine's Day stat line on Texas Tech Saturday night.