There's no real secret as to what did in Michigan State in the NCAA championship game. Yes, there was the superior talent on North Carolina. The Tar Heels shot really effectively in the first half. North Carolina could actually make free throws. The issue for Michigan State, though, was their inability to hold onto the ball.
The Spartans turned the ball over 21 times in the game. The poor ball-handling made it easier for North Carolina to go on runs big runs and stopped Michigan State attempts to come back cold.
This is it. The last game of the 2008-09 basketball season. Whether you're rooting for Michigan State or North Carolina join is for a live chat at 9 PM ET and stick with us through the night. We'll be talking about the game, how the teams got here, the Arizona and Memphis quests to find someone to take their job, and anything else that comes to mind.
Whether it was an off night, the size and length of North Carolina's defense bothering the smaller Villanova guards, it all added up to the same thing: a crate load of bricks. When the Wildcats shoot a hideous 5-of-27 on 3-pointers (18.5 percent), they do not have much of a chance. There is not much to decipher.
Villanova gave up size all over the court, so they needed to hit some of their jump shots to have a chance, to open up lanes for penetration to the basket and to give Dante Cunningham a little space inside to work.
This is what we have been waiting all week for, through non-stories like Ty Lawson legally playing craps, through analysis beaten into the ground, through the cycling of the coaching carousel. Well, Michigan State and UConn tip off at 6:07 PM EST. We will start the live blog at 6 PM ET. Join us after the jump.
PHILADELPHIA -- Dante Cunningham pays attention. He watches basketball. He knows who the good players are, the ones getting all the attention. He's well aware of what North Carolina's Ty Lawson has been doing -- ACC Player of the Year, front-runner (so far) for NCAA tournament most outstanding player. Cunningham is impressed. But he's not scared.
He's been watching Ty Lawson play his whole life.
"As a friend, I'm proud of him for what he's doing," Cunningham said of Lawson on Wednesday, at Villanova's final practice before departing for Detroit and the Final Four. "But as a competitor, I have to sit and understand that he has gotten better. I mean, obviously. He's one of the better players in the country. And we're going to need a great game plan to contain him."
PHILADELPHIA -- Detroit's Ford Field is the place where Villanova's NCAA tournament ended last year, with a Sweet 16 loss to eventual champion Kansas. The site of this year's Final Four, it's the place where the Wildcats' 2009 tournament will end as well. This time, they're hoping they can win a couple of games before that happens.
This time, they think they'll be better prepared for the unique challenge of playing a basketball game in a converted indoor football stadium -- in particular the unusually long walk from the locker room and a raised floor that apparently shakes a bit when you play on it.
Is Villanova this Final Four's unwelcome guest? Its square peg? The one of these things that's not like the others; the one of these things that doesn't belong?
Maybe. The Wildcats are certainly the most surprising entrant. Plenty of people wrote Connecticut and North Carolina into that big box in the middle of their brackets two weeks ago. A few people (and yeah, you're looking at one of em) even wrote in Michigan State. But if you picked Villanova to win it all, you were in the minority, and you probably still are.
The Tar Heels really did not contain Oklahoma's player of the year, despite a flurry of double teams. But they didn't have to, since the rest of the Sooner squad was never a factor. The game was effectively Blake Griffin versus North Carolina. As great a player as Griffin is, he could not beat all of North Carolina.
Gonzaga was Cinderella once. It's been too good for too long to wear that particular dress now, but by late Friday night it was the closest thing this tournament had left. Once Louisville destroyed Arizona in the night's first game, the Zags, a four, were the highest seed left in the field.
And then they were promptly dismantled by a very healthy-looking Ty Lawson and North Carolina.
If Lawson's toe is all better and he can play like this, there may be nothing anybody can do. Remember back in the early part of this season, when North Carolina looked head-and-shoulders better than everybody else in the land? Yeah. That wasn't that long ago, and if you had to make a pick right now because your life depended on it, you'd take the Heels, wouldn't you?
Last night's action had one tight game, a blowout that tightened near the end, a walloping, and a game that never became a blowout though the outcome was never in doubt.
Tonight, Louisville takes on that, uh, Cinderella team from the desert in Arizona. Syracuse and Oklahoma should be a lot of fun in the early games. Later tonight Kansas and Michigan State looks like it should be gem. Also North Carolina gets Gonzaga, the original West Coast Cinderella that has not been that for some time.
Stop on by around 6:30 PM ET to talk about the action from yesterday and the games tonight. Plus, there is always the coaching carousel and what happens next at Kentucky.
There's no real secret as to what did in Michigan State in the NCAA championship game. Yes, there was the superior talent on North Carolina. The Tar Heels shot really effectively in the first half. North Carolina could actually make free throws. The issue for Michigan State, though, was their inability to hold onto the ball. 
Whether it was an off night, the size and length of North Carolina's defense bothering the smaller Villanova guards, it all added up to the same thing: a crate load of bricks. When the Wildcats shoot a hideous 5-of-27 on 3-pointers (18.5 percent), they do not have much of a chance. There is not much to decipher.
PHILADELPHIA -- 
PHILADELPHIA -- Detroit's Ford Field is the place where 
Is Villanova this Final Four's unwelcome guest? Its square peg? The one of these things that's not like the others; the one of these things that doesn't belong?
Gonzaga was Cinderella once. It's been too good for too long to wear that particular dress now, but by late Friday night it was the closest thing this tournament had left. Once Louisville destroyed Arizona in the night's first game, the Zags, a four, were the highest seed left in the field.
Last night's action had one tight game, a blowout that tightened near the end, a walloping, and a game that never became a blowout though the outcome was never in doubt. 
