The East Regional Final was so awesome that they needed 5 more minutes to determine a champion.  It was a tale of two halves – in the first half, Louisville destroyed the Spartans in the paint and jumped out to an 8 point half time lead.  As Louisville was holding for the last shot in the first half (which they made), CBS posted a pretty amazing stat – the Cardinals had won 94 straight games where they had a lead of 6 or more at the half.

Only problem is no one told the Michigan State Spartans that the odds said the game was over.  Michigan State started driving to the basket, took the inside game away on defense and really opened up the game to having both some impressive drives and nice kick-outs for three to take the lead.  But neither team could hit the critical free throws at the end of the game to take the game – sending it to overtime.

Then, the Spartans kicked off the overtime with a big three-point shot that gave the Spartans a lead that this time, they would not give up.   Branden Dawson hit a huge tip-in with about 30 seconds left, and then Travis Trice hit two free throws to finish the game and send Michigan State to Indianapolis.

Congratulations to the Michigan State Spartans, our third team to reach the Final Four!