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    Power Play

    UConn shows NBA-level talent, not dreams, wins national titles

    Chris Baldwin
    Apr 4, 2011 | 10:27 pm
    • Butler and UConn battled for the national championship at Reliant Stadium.
      Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images
    • Kemba Walker missed his first five shots in the national championship game.
    • Butler coach Brad Stevens had his team believing — and fighting.

    In the end, it's about talent. It's not about power conference or mid-major, giant or Cinderella, Goliath or David.

    It's how many upper level NBA prospects are on your roster. UConn coach Jim Calhoun counted on this all along, knew he didn't just have a Kemba, but a young Lamb as well. Not to mention the type of big-man depth that Butler simply cannot counter.

    So Houston's Final Four ends with UConn overpowering Butler 53-41 in an anti-climatic national championship game. An NCAA Tournament that featured 20 games that were decided by three points or less — or in overtime — turned into a second-half UConn talent overpowering.

    With the Huskies' sure NBA star Kemba Walker (16 points, nine rebounds) getting plenty of help from UConn's next one, freshman Jeremy Lamb, and a big man who could earn his own pro time, the Final Four turned into a talent lesson rather than a feel-good tale.

    On a night when Walker struggled with his shot (5 for 19), the 6-foot-5, long, lean Lamb scored all 12 of his points in the second half and Alex Oriakhi (11 points) helped control the inside.

    Butler (28-10) had enough heart. It simply didn't have enough high-level talent. It's one certain NBA player — guard Shelvin Mack — shot 4-for-15. Its other star — forward Matt Howard, the guy who got the handshake with George Bush at the NCAA Salute on Thursday night — missed 12 of his 13 shots.

    Butler shot 18 percent as a team. Eighteen percent. The lowest in NCAA title game history.

    It played out in front of 70,376 at Reliant Stadium (about 5,000 less than Saturday night's Final Four record crowd), with George and Barbara Bush back in attendance cheering for Butler, with LeAnn Rimes singing the national anthem, with Bill Walton, one of the greatest college basketball players ever, wandering around the tunnels of the stadium.

    A big-time night. On a big-time stage. For a big-time champion.

    "It's so special," said Calhoun, who became the oldest coach (68) to ever win the NCAA championship. "These group of kids have given me the type of year that every coach should have at least once."

    UConn's fabulous freshman Lamb — who emerged late in the season as Walker's most reliable sidekick — scored nine points in the first eight minutes of the second half after putting up a zero in the first 20 minutes. UConn coach Jim Calhoun likes to call Lamb "The Next". As in when Walker leaves for the NBA after this season, Lamb will be UConn's next great player.

    On this night, Lamb would go about making Butler wait until next year. Again.

    Butler resisted labels like underdog, Cinderella, little team and even mid-major all year. Instead, Brad Stevens' bunch wanted to be thought of as a team on a mission, one determined to take the next step after losing in the national championship game to Duke in 2010.

    No matter how few people believed the Bulldogs could do it.

    "It's all about unfinished business," Butler guard Shawn Vanzant said before the game.

    UConn's been taking care of business all March. The Huskies (32-9) won five straight Big East tournament games to capture the title for what was supposed to be the toughest conference in the land. Then, they won five straight games in the NCAA Tournament to get to this night.

    Their 11th straight win overall meant Calhoun has three national championships and everyone was wearing UConn No. 1 hats.

    Butler threatened to streak right to a national championship. The Bulldogs had not lost since Feb. 3 — 14 straight wins heading into Monday night — but this was a streak filled with more close, clutch pull-outs than dominance.

    And Brad Stevens' team couldn't match UConn's power on the night it mattered most.

    The mammoth Reliant crowd clearly wanted to see another Butler win — and a little mid-major history. When Butler guard Chase Stigall hit Butler's first shot — a 3-pointer from the wing — the football stadium seemed louder than it had ever been in Saturday night's semifinals.

    Walker missed his first five shots of the night. Both teams looked tight and tense on the national championship stage. Four minutes into the game, the score stood at 6-4.

    With so much on the line, an artistic game wasn't in the picture. This would be a scrape and crawl for the trophy — above all, a fight.

    Butler started 3 for 17 from the field (a pitiful 17.3 percent clip). UConn wasn't all that much better, but all that talk about Butler being the more experienced team on this national championship stage, about the Bulldogs carrying the power of last March's so-close title loss to Duke making a difference, seemed to be going up in clangs.

    Then, Stigall pulled up and hit a 26-foot triple. Then, Shelvin Mack buried another 3-pointer in transition. But the biggest shot of the first half came when Mack hit another long three at the buzzer, putting the underdogs on a mission up by three points at the break.

    Who needs pretty when you're winning?

    But Butler soon found out that everyone needs talent.

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    Beyond the Boxscore

    Houston in line to get more Final Fours after 2016: NCAA officials expect it tobecome a regular

    Chris Baldwin
    Apr 5, 2011 | 7:07 pm
    • The success of Bracket Town meant almost as much to the NCAA as the success atReliant Stadium.
      Photo by Bruce Bennett
    • NCAA official Greg Shaheen praised Houston's Final Four efforts.
    • Kemba Walker wasn't the only one who flew high at this Final Four.
      Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

    When even NCAA officials are making jokes about the lowest-scoring NCAA Championship Game since 1949, you know they had a good time in Houston.

    That's what happens in the Final Four wrap-up press conference Tuesday. Greg Shaheen — the highest-ranking NCAA official in the room — opens his portion with a crack about the offensive woes Monday night.

    Shaheen notes that if more people had the motor shown by Houston Final Four Local Organizing Committee interim executive director Doug Hall then "we might have had a game last night where both teams scored 60 points."

    "You were on overdrive," Shaheen says to Hall.

    Yes, there is a whole lot of love in the room when the Houston LOC and the NCAA meet for the last time before this 2011 Final Four becomes part of the record books — and thoughts begin to slowly turn to the 2016 Final Four that will be held in Houston and the 2015 regional at Reliant Stadium before that.

    It does not figure to end in 2016 though. Shaheen — the NCAA's interim executive vice president of championships and alliances — tells CutureMap he expects there will be even more Final Fours in Houston in the future.

    "I don't see any reason why Houston wouldn't become a regular part of our rotation," Shaheen says.

    Shaheen would be the first to say that the NCAA's Basketball Committee will make the final call like usual on future sites, but he says the committee is thrilled with Houston's performance.

    "This is what a showcase event should look like," Shaheen says of a Houston event that set the Final Four record for total attendance (145,747 at the two nights of games) and also drew an estimated 140,000 to the Big Dance Concert Series (the concert figure is based on an "approximation" of the number of people who came through Discovery Green during all three concerts that lasted several hours each) and another 49,000 to Bracket Town at the George R. Brown Convention Center. "This is what a national championship should feel like.

    "It should be exhausting the next morning and be a seamless effort."

    Later Shaheen quips, "UConn is not the only winner here."

    Instead, Texas might be the biggest winner of all. For the Lone Star State has emerged as the NCAA's big event darling. Texas will host three Final Fours in a six-year stretch (Houston in 2011 and 2016, Dallas in 2014). And that type of dominance is not expected to end anytime soon either.

    "In the modern era, for both the men's and women's championships, I don't know that any state has emerged like Texas," Shaheen says. "And I think you have to include San Antonio (host of the 1998, 2004 and 2008 Final Fours) in that equation as well. There are a lot of things Texas offers the championships that are unique."

    Standing off to the side in the ballroom at the Hyatt Regency — which served as the headquarters for the coaches convention during Final Four week, housing all the big names who weren't coaching in the games — Robert Dale Morgan is sure of what makes Houston such a lure.

    Morgan, the president and executive director of the 2011 Houston Final Four LOC, held a similar position for Houston's 2004 Super Bowl and many credit his vision with helping the city see its big sports event potential, with a Super Bowl, Major League Baseball All-Star Game, NBA All-Star Game, Major League Soccer All-Star Game and now a Final Four all having been held here since 2004. Not that Morgan wants that recognition.

    He chooses to sit in the crowd rather than on the stage at the wrap-up press conference. He probably could have blended in to, wearing a Houston Final Four hat with his suit, if so many people on the stage didn't point him out. Bob Beauchamp, chairman of the Houston Final Four LOC, calls Morgan, "the best in the business."

    "Having six million people who care," Morgan says in explaining how Houston's positioned itself as the host city with the most. "Having a dozen Fortune 500 companies. And oh by the way, we have really great weather 300 days out of the year."

     Trash Talk Between Friends

    Houston hands off the Final Four to New Orleans, next year's host. The transition is a bit of intentional symbolism by the NCAA which wants to recognize how closely the two cities are linked and the Bayou City's role in helping after Hurricane Katrina.

    This will be the fifth Final Four that New Orleans has hosted and the city's LOC executive director John Koerner can't help but point out to Houston, the new city in "the rotation," how great every one of the NCAA Championship Games held in the Big Easy has been.

    "New Orleans has hosted some of the most memorable finals ever," Koerner says. "We had Michael Jordan's shot, Keith Smart's shot, Chris Webber's infamous timeout and Hakim Warrick's block at the buzzer."

    And from its first Final Four, Houston has? Well, a whole lot of clangs — and Butler's record-low 18.8 percent shooting.

    Not that anyone in the NCAA is holding it against the Bayou City. The organization credentialed 1,387 media members for this Final Four, loved the visibility brought about by having it in one of the America's biggest cities. Even if you have to wonder how much everyone was into it locally. The TV rating in Houston for the unsightly Butler-UConn national championship game only ranked 30th out of the 56 major media markets.

    Shaheen's not dwelling on that. Instead, he's sticking around Houston to take in more of the city without the pressures of the mega event.

    "I don't have a flight home," Shaheen says, knowing that Southwest Airlines' grounded jets have made it much harder than usual to land one last minute. "So I'll be staying here two, three, four, five more days. I may be looking to get an apartment and just become a resident."

    Shaheen laughs. Who says NCAA suits don't have a sense of humor?

    When they are happily in Houston, they sure do.

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