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.
As discussed here earlier in the week, there was a way for Villanova to beat North Carolina. They had to do it on the perimeter, where they were supposedly strong and the Tar Heels were supposedly weak. They had to do it by exploiting Carolina's suspect three-point shooting defense and driving against the Heels' weak help-side interior defense.
This was all feasible. Anybody who's watched Carolina play for the past couple of years has seen the Heels go through scoring droughts and fritter away leads while they ignored defense entirely for large chunks of the game.
But a funny thing happened on the way to Ford Field. It looks as if North Carolina doesn't do that anymore. In fact, with a healthy Ty Lawson and an improved 40-minute focus, it looks as if North Carolina might not have any flaws in its game at all.
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.
Scottie Reynolds has hit a lot of shots for Villanova, but never, ever, ever one quite like this.
Ladies and gentlemen, we may have just witnessed the last Big East game of the 2008-09 season. If Louisville wins Sunday and Villanova wins again next Saturday, we get two more, but there's no guarantee. It's possible that this down-to-the-last-half-second classic, in which Villanova beat top-seeded Pitt to reach the Final Four, was the last game of the year between Big East teams.
Well, you don't have to look too hard to get the point of this night in NCAA Tournament history. The Big East won three of the four Sweet 16 games played tonight -- two of them easily. At this very moment, it's pretty hard to like Oklahoma's or Arizona's chances on Friday night, or Missouri's on Saturday. The Big East is flexing muscles, baring fangs, dropping its collective shoulder and knocking down all of college basketball on its way to history's hoop. The conference is guaranteed one Final Four entrant (either Villanova or Pitt will make it) and still has a chance to grab all four spots. Only one conference has ever had as many as three in the Final Four and that was...yeah. The Big East. In 1985.
The NCAA tournament is just days away, so FanHouse writers and editors got together to talk over each region. The Midwest Region got the ball rolling. Now it's the East's turn.
Pitt has been ranked No. 4 or better in all but one week this year. Despite that, the story all season has been that Pitt has never won more than two games in the NCAA Tournament.
Duke has been hanging around the top 10 all season. The Blue Devils had a slide in the middle of conference play, but tweaking the lineup seems to have worked (except when facing North Carolina) in sparking them to yet another ACC Tournament Championship.
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.
As discussed 
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?
Well, you don't have to look too hard to get the point of this night in NCAA Tournament history. The Big East won three of the four Sweet 16 games played tonight -- two of them easily. At this very moment, it's pretty hard to like Oklahoma's or Arizona's chances on Friday night, or Missouri's on Saturday. The Big East is flexing muscles, baring fangs, dropping its collective shoulder and knocking down all of college basketball on its way to history's hoop. The conference is guaranteed one Final Four entrant (either Villanova or Pitt will make it) and still has a chance to grab all four spots. Only one conference has ever had as many as three in the Final Four and that was...yeah. The Big East. In 1985.
Pitt has been ranked No. 4 or better in all but one week this year. Despite that, the story all season has been that Pitt has never won more than two games in the NCAA Tournament.
