As we get to 30 minutes away from the Final Four beginning, I was looking for something to blog about.  Was going to do my typical grading the conferences – but that will take too long – I won’t finish that in time.

And then it occurred to me – with all the negativity around the college basketball recruiting scandal and the dominance of the one-and-done players like Zion Williamson and R.J. Barrett, I realized that there are a few really awesome things about this year’s Final Four.

First of all, each of the top 4 conferences are sending one of their regular-season or conference tournament champions.  How awesome is it that we have each of the conference’s best teams fighting for the national championship.  It is good for college basketball when we have representatives from all of the conferences.

But maybe more importantly, the four remaining teams are all pretty experienced teams – none of them have any of the obvious one-and-done players.  You always hear about the one-and-done player ruining college basketball – but none of those players are left.  These teams are led by outstanding coaches and experienced players.   I do have to admit that I would be a little happier if Auburn wasn’t there – since they are still so much of a part of the FBI recruiting sample (one of their assistant coaches was arrested by the FBI).  But other than that small detail, these teams are led by juniors and seniors.

It is good for college basketball when it will be the juniors and seniors leading their teams to the title.   You have to figure that some of these stars will still make the NBA – but all 4 of these teams are here because of how well their supporting casts have played.  And all of these teams have supporting casts that are truly student athletes – they are likely all going to play 4 years and graduate from their school.

And those student athletes having this type of success is good for college basketball.

Enjoy the games!!!!!!