The BIG 10 Is Down!

All season long, the pundits, prognosticators and analysts put the Big 10 down as not being one of the Elite 5 Conferences in the country. They claimed they could not compete with the Southern and Eastern conferences. They were not deep enough and could not hold their own in the Big Dance.

It does not matter to me who wins the National Championship tonight. Duke is favored once again by most of the so-called experts. The main reason is Duke beat Wisconsin earlier this year by ten points. Granted, that did happen. However, I contend it was two different teams and Wisconsin was playing without its second best player, Sam Dekker. He has averaged over 20 points per game in the tournament and I believe his regular season average is about 18 points. You take that kind of production out of any lineup and chances are you are not going to win.

When a single conference puts two of the four teams in the Final Four, it is my contention that conference deserves to be considered one of the best in the nation, if not the best.

If Frank (The Tank) Kaminsky can beat the Sports Illustrated cover jinx and get his team to the championship game, I believe he deserves all the accolades that have been bestowed upon him and deserves to be named The Player Of The Year!

My latest Sports Illustrated had Kentucky on the cover. They could not overcome the jinx! Kentucky is indeed a great collection of NBA talent and their top six players average in double figures. That almost never happens! The thing with Kentucky is they will lose a good part of those freshmen to the NBA with the one and done rule we now see in college basketball.

The only reason I would like to see Duke win tonight is because freshmen, Tyus Jones is playing exceptionally well and has gone from winning the Minnesota state championship while leading Apple Valley just one year ago to the possibility of doing the same with Duke.

I am especially excited for young Mr. Jones because he played for Zach Goring, whom I have known since he was a young boy growing up in Apple Valley. Zach is even part of a story I tell in my book about the Dairy Queen girl. I have known Zach's father Darrell for a long time and there is another one of those small world stories behind our relationship!

Either way, I am excited to watch the championship game tonight. It will just be sad because I will have to go through a rapid withdrawal of watching another season of college basketball.

It is a good thing baseball started yesterday or I might have to undergo some sort of sports withdrawal treatment. I cannot get excited about watching most NBA games because they're all alike and do not seem to mean much until they get into the playoffs. Then I start watching the multimillionaires battle it out one-on-one to find out who can play the longest and have the fewest amount of injuries.

I have to go as the big game is about to start. May the best team win!

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike