National Champs

It's official, UConn has capped its unlikely run through March-April with a National Championship.  The Huskies, despite finishing ninth in the loaded Big East this season, incredibly won their last 11 games (five in the Big East Tournament, six in the NCAA Tournament) to win the third national title in school history.  The National Championship Game was a bit of a dud, but Kemba and Co. were such a buzzsaw in the postseason that Butler had no chance.  Even if the Bulldogs had actually made a shot, UConn was the better team last night.  And the Huskies had that whole "team of destiny" vibe going on, too.

With the win over Butler, Connecticut won an indisputable National Championship.  That's clear to pretty much everyone.  Except for one of the coaches who votes on the coaches' poll.  The final poll came out this afternoon and UConn got 30 of the 31 first-place votes?!  The other first-place vote went to Ohio State, a team that lost in the Sweet 16.  Did I miss something?

This isn't football with its ridiculous BCS and arbitray champion.  For the last 70 years they've had a tournament to determine the National Champion in basketball.  UConn won that tournament.  End of story.  They've got the trophy to prove it.  Even if you don't think they're the best team, so what!  They're the National Champions.  You can't make any legitimate case for any other team.  But apparently one voter thinks a case can be made for Ohio State.  Is Ohio State a better team than UConn?  Probably.  But guess what?  It doesn't matter!  Voters aren't required to put the National Champion as No. 1 on their final ballot, but they should out of principle.  (It's interesting to note here that votes are public on all of the weekly polls, but not the final one, so we won't get to find out which coach snubbed UConn).  And if you want to pick somebody else, at least pick a team that advanced past the Sweet 16.  (For the record, if I had a vote, my final top five would've been UConn, Butler, Kentucky, VCU, Kansas.) 

Seriously, what is it with people and Ohio State?  My boss Steve worked the East Regional in Newark, and his job was to count the ballots for the all-region team.  He gave me this delightful nugget about our friends from Columbus.  Even though Kentucky won the regional and advanced to the Final Four, some moron picked Jared Sullinger as East Region MVP.  To reiterate, not only did Ohio State lose its first game in Newark, it lost TO KENTUCKY!  I'm sure the guy who did that is from Ohio.  Put your allegiances aside and be a professional.  If your team lost, don't act like they were still the best.

On the women's side, Texas A&M won its first National Championship wearing these uniforms:

on this court:

The uniforms aren't really that bad at first glance until you see the back (look at No. 1 in the picture).  The numbers are way too high and way too small.  And the names on the bottom look incredibly dumb.  The worst part is that Texas A&M isn't the only school that has these uniforms.  In fact, both teams in the National Championship Game wear them.  These uniforms are cut differently at the top, which is why the names have to be at the bottom.  I'm not a fan.

As for the court, I don't understand why so many people are ripping it.  The NCAA has had some bad court designs for the Women's Final Four over the years (see below), and this year's wasn't anywhere near as bad as some of those:

There were no giant arches (2009) or giant guitars (2007), and the three-point area was actually all the same color (unlike 2008 and 2010).  At least they tried.  The whole concept was a retro court design to go with the Final Four logo, that had an old-style basketball as the "O".  I'm even willing to go out on a limb and say that I actually kind of liked this year's Women's Final Four floor design (at least the concept).  At least it wasn't one of those stupid raised floors (with the dumb slogan running from endline to endline) they insist on using for the Men's Final Four.  (Side note, if you can't see a football game from the top row of those domes, how are you going to see a basketball game, raised floor or not?) 

Next year, the Women's Final Four is in Denver, so we can only be left to wonder how they'll incorporate mountains into the floor design.  My guess is that it'll look similar to the St. Louis floor, with the mountains on the bottom instead of the top.