(USA Today April 5, 2011) On Monday evening third-seeded Connecticut defeated eigth seeded Butler for the national title Monday evening. Kemba Walker, a 6-1 All-American from Bronx, NY, steered a young Connecticut team that started the season unranked all the way to the NCAA title game vs. Butler on Monday night at Reliant Stadium in Houston. Connecticut won the title 53-41, handing Butler it's second straight NCAA championship game loss. Bulter lost to Duke last year 71-69 for the national title. It was a very low-scoring game. The Bulldogs (28-10), were held to a title record low 18.8% shooting. Connecticut's records is 32-9. Connecticut won it's third national championship under Coach Jim Calhoun. UCONN won two other titles in 1999 and 2004. Kemba Walker was named the Final Four's most outstanding player.
I rarely write posts on sports stories, but I do like to recap whenever Kentucky or Louisville achieves a milestone in the NCAA tournament. Kentucky earned their victory to the first Final Four since 1998 when they beat Utah 78-69 on March 30, 1998. Even though they lost to Connecticut by a single point, 56-55 in the national semifinal, the Wildcats still had a good season overall considering their struggles during the SEC regular season conference. During the regular season, the Wildcats lost 6 out of 8 SEC road games. The 2010-11 Kentucky Wildcats lost four freshmen (John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Daniel Orton, Eric Bledsoe), one junior (Patrick Patterson) one sophomore (Darnell Dodson) and one senior (Ramone Harris) from last year's team. Kentucky had a splendid group of extraordinary freshmen who, in Coach Calipari's first season as Kentucky's head coach, transformed a mediocre, NIT Kentucky team the season before to a 35-3 season which lost to West Virginia in the regional finals last year. Last year many fans had predicted Kentucky would've made it to the Final Four under John Wall and UK's extraordinary freshmen. UK's freshmen that year meshed well and had great depth. This year's team consisted of freshmen Brandon Knight, Doron Lamb, Terrence Jones, senior Josh Harrelson, and juniors Darius Miller and DeAndre Liggins. One recruit UK counted on for this season, Enes Kanter, was declared ineligible early in the season and even after appealing, the request to reinstate Kanter's eligibility was denied.
This year's UK team didn't possess the depth like last year's team and this year's team was more susceptible to foul trouble. Kentucky had to rely more upon Harrelson, Miller, and Liggins this season. All three upperclassmen delivered. Josh Harrelson had improved tremendously from last season to this season. Harrelson should be nominated as the most improved player of Kentucky. After losing to Arkansas, Kentucky regrouped and they started player together more as a team. As a result, they won the SEC tournament championship and pulled off surprising upsets against no. 1 seeded Ohio State in the Sweet 16 and second-seeded North Carolina in the regional final. Even though they fell to Connecticut for the second time in the Final Four (UK lost to Connecticut earlier this season in the championship game of the Maui Classic by 17 points), they still had a tremendous season. Who expected UK to make it to the Final Four this season after losing Wall and Cousins from last year's team? I didn't expect it. They have much to be proud of this season considering this year's team wasn't quite the same caliber as last season.
If Kentucky retains some of this year's freshmen, I project that next season UK will be ranked in the preseason top five. Kentucky should once again be a contender for the national title considering the class of freshmen coming next season. The new freshmen coming to UK next season are Marquis Teague, Anthony Davis, Kyle Witljer, and Michael Gilchrist.
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