MARCH 31, 2008 --

The four top seeds in the 2008 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament -- North Carolina, Memphis, UCLA and Kansas-- made it to the Final Four, for the first time. LPR congratulates the teams -- and the NCAA in its tournament  acumen.

Apparently North Carolina (East regional champ) is the No. 1 top seed. With North Carolina playing Kansas (Midwest regional champ) in one semi-final, Kansas is likely  the No. 4 top seed. This probably has Memphis (South regional champ) the No. 2 top seed,  and its rival UCLA (West regional champ) the No. 3 top seed.

If  North Carolina  does not defeat  Memphis for the championship there may be some room for de facto-ing the Final Four, yet. The semi-finals will be played April 5 in San Antonio's Alamodome, with the championship game two days later. (LPR hopes a venue with this name will not cause any difficulties.)

LPR, stat-googling, was reminded that North Carolina Coach Roy Williams was succeeded, at Kansas, in 2003, by Bill Self, whose Kansas record to date is 139 wins against 32 defeats. Williams' record at North Carolina for the same period, as of this writing is 141 wins and 32 losses. (Williams was 418 - 101 at Kansas.)

Coach of Memphis is John Calipari who led UMass from 1988 to 1996.  UMass got into this year's National Invitation Tournament's final four  by coming from 22 points back, early in the second half, to beat Syracuse, on the Syracuse home court, 81 - 77, March 25. Not much notice is given the NIT -- the original post-season college basketball nationwide tournament -- and LPR thought its clicksters should know about the great UMass comeback.

On April 1, at New York City's Madison Square Garden UMass faces Florida (NCAA champ last year) in one NIT semi-final, with Mississippi - Ohio State, playing in the other semi-final.  The NIT championship game will be played two days later at the Garden.  LPR obviously hopes it will be a UMass-UMiss game.

UCLA Coach Ben Howland, LPR notes, is the only one of the NCAA Final Four coaches to have played professional basketball in Uruguay.

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LPR also congratulates Davidson for coming within three points of getting into the NCAA Final Four. Indeed, Davidson's No. 10 seeding is indication that the team was not expected to win any games in the tournament, let alone get to the regional finals.

Still, LPR, following the Kansas-Davidson game with interest (won by Kansas 59-57), would suggest (admittedly from hindsight) that working the ball and looking for the open shot sometimes has better results  than  running down court  for three-pointers.