DETROIT -- Maybe it's his folksy arrogance, the Huckleberry Hound-with-an-attitude rub. Maybe it was the way he lectured TV reporter Bonnie Bernstein, saying, "I could give a (bleep) about Carolina right now" when she asked about his future plans after his 2003 national title-game loss. Maybe it was the Kansas button he wore last year, a weird show of allegiance for an ex-employer in the championship game after the Jayhawks had whipped his Tar Heels.
Or maybe America simply is growing weary of North Carolina, the powder bluebloods who dominate April like azaleas at Augusta and fools on the 1st.
DETROIT -- Somewhere on the Road to the Final Four, which once it finally gets to this championship round is called The Road Ends Here, should have been some guys holding placards that read: "Hooping for a Cause."
They should've been wearing Michigan State green and North Carolina blue. They should've been Spartans and Tar Heels led by Tom Izzo and Roy Williams. They should've been the two teams that survived to Monday night's title game.
Most survivors to the championship game are motivated simply by the title of champion at the end of the journey. These two teams are as well.
DETROIT -- If you really think about it, to call the North Carolina basketball team Tar Heels has always been more of an oxymoron. Michael Jordan. Walter Davis. Bob McAdoo. Vince Carter. James Worthy. On and on. You think of them and you think smooth. You think finesse. You think of a pretty way of playing.
It isn't that Jordan and Carter and lots of other North Carolina basketball players weren't tough, but you don't think of them as the 19th century North Carolinians who burned trees into black muck, or tar, that they then spread on the bottom of boats. You don't think of them as part of that North Carolina Civil War lore -- the wrong and losing side, by the way -- where a Confederate troop leader pleaded with his boys to fight with the toughness of those North Carolinians he'd heard about, those Tar Heels.
DETROIT -- If you really think about it, to call the North Carolina basketball team Tar Heels has always been more of an oxymoron. Michael Jordan. Walter Davis. Bob McAdoo. Vince Carter. James Worthy. On and on. You think of them and you think smooth. You think finesse. You think of a pretty way of playing.
It isn't that Jordan and Carter and lots of other North Carolina basketball players weren't tough, but you don't think of them as the 19th century North Carolinians who burned trees into black muck, or tar, that they then spread on the bottom of boats. You don't think of them as part of that North Carolina Civil War lore -- the wrong and losing side, by the way -- where a Confederate troop leader pleaded with his boys to fight with the toughness of those North Carolinians he'd heard about, those Tar Heels.
DETROIT -- On command, when a local kid named Durrell Summers lifted off and nearly decapitated Stanley Robinson with a vicious dunk, a moving wave of green-swept humanity rose and rocked. Yes, your honor, this was a ridiculous homecourt advantage, a home-FIELD advantage of about 45,000 local crazies in a 72,500-seat football stadium, an advantage in ways freakishly unprecedented in the fiercely neutral extravaganza known as the Final Four.
Ford Field is guilty as charged.
And not a soul with a conscience should complain about it.
DETROIT -- If Jim Nantz utters even one mushy word about the innocence of the Final Four, please muzzle him. As it is, the games will be contested inside a bubble of greed, a football dome that wraps 72,000 mostly bad seats around a basketball court positioned at midfield. As it is, the NCAA has joined marketing hands with the International Management Group, a firm that represents college coaches and pro athletes and only invites conflicts of interests. As it is, the idea of "student-athletes " playing in an amateur environment is farcical.
DETROIT -- If Jim Nantz utters even one mushy word about the innocence of the Final Four, please muzzle him. As it is, the games will be contested inside a bubble of greed, a football dome that wraps 72,000 mostly bad seats around a basketball court positioned at midfield. As it is, the NCAA has joined marketing hands with the International Management Group, a firm that represents college coaches and pro athletes and only invites conflicts of interests. As it is, the idea of "student-athletes " playing in an amateur environment is farcical.
Jeff Teague looked one way. James Johnson looked another. And head coach Dino Gaudio spent so much time crouching on the sideline you had to wonder if he was coaching a team or wondering if the crop was about to come in.
What they were thinking was anyone's guess, though you didn't have to be able to read minds to have a good idea it involved a lot of frustration and a whole storm front full of and things that can't be printed on a family Web site.
What everyone else was thinking, though, was so crystal clear it might as well have been plastered over the midcourt logo: "Again."
The point guard couldn't talk, the power forward wouldn't cry and the crowd just wouldn't shut up.
In a makeshift room small enough to make an elevator operator feel claustrophobic, March has ended for the last time for Holy Cross seniors Pat Doherty and Alex Vander Baan. On three sides, the walls are blue floor-length curtains, so cheers meant for someone else rush in like and splatter around like a tsunami hitting a fishing pond. Red streaks appear in Vander Baan ready to coax out tears while and Doherty, choked up, sits and listen as blow by blow of "AU" chants pinball around the arena. They're boxers, all but on their feet, leaning on the ropes so they won't fall down.
Elie Seckbach, the Embedded Correspondent, brings his exclusive video reporting to FanHouse. Check back regularly for more videos.
Making it to the Big Dance is the moment every college player dreams about, but for members of the Cal State Northridge basketball team this achievement means so much more. This year's team had to overcome challenges on and off the court time and time again, only to remain standing tall.
In this exclusive FanHouse report, we were there with the Cal State players and coach Bobby Braswell as they get the news that they made the NCAA tournament, with top-seeded Memphis waiting in the first round. And no, they aren't backing down from this challenge either.
DETROIT -- Maybe it's his folksy arrogance, the Huckleberry Hound-with-an-attitude rub. Maybe it was the way he lectured TV reporter Bonnie Bernstein, saying, "I could give a (bleep) about Carolina right now" when she asked about his future plans after his 2003 national title-game loss. Maybe it was the Kansas button he wore last year, a weird show of allegiance for an ex-employer in the championship game after the Jayhawks had whipped his Tar Heels.
DETROIT -- Somewhere on the Road to the 
DETROIT -- If you really think about it, to call the 
DETROIT -- If Jim Nantz utters even one mushy word about the innocence of the 
The point guard couldn't talk, the power forward wouldn't cry and the crowd just wouldn't shut up.
Elie Seckbach, the Embedded Correspondent, brings his exclusive video reporting to FanHouse. Check back regularly for more videos. 
