Louisville Wins the NCAA Basketball Tournament

The University of Louisville Cardinals won their third men’s basketball title (the women’s team is a 14 point underdog in its title tilt tonight vs the vaunted University of Connecticut team/history) and first since 1986, beating Michigan University (82-76) in the title game. Louisville was a four point favorite and went (4-2) vs the spread in capturing the title.

Luke Hancock, who made all five of his three point shots in the championship game, was named the outstanding player of the Final Four.

Louisville coach Rick Pitino got “the big one,” capping a recent roll that manifested in his Hall of Fame selection and his son Richard being named head basketball coach at Minnesota University.

With the victory Louisville is (3-0) in finals games while Michigan dropped to (1-5) in such games.

Why didn’t the “big historian” Jim Nantz note that in Michigan’s lone title win they got two free throws from Rumeal Robinson in the waning seconds to get the title. Last night another Robinson, (Glenn) made two free throws to give Michigan the lead. Though in the waning seconds, those free throws were at the end of the half, and to be up only one point, having once had a 12 point advantage, did not augur well for Michigan.

The five Michigan title game losses have all been to Hall of Fame coaches, who achieved at least two titles while coaching. This was the fourth time that a coach won his second title vs Michigan. In addition to Pitino last night, John Wooden (1965), Mike Krzyzewski (1992), Dean Smith (1993) all won their second title vs Michigan. Bob Knight, whose penchant for “chair throwing,” is seemingly glorified in yet another ridiculous ad, won the first of his three titles vs Michigan in 1976.