This weekend brings college basketball’s premier event: the NCAA Final Four. This year, the Kentucky Wildcats, Louisville Cardinals, Kansas Jayhawks and Ohio State Buckeyes will gather in New Orleans to battle it out for the national championship.
To commemorate the festivities and help you prepare for the games, we turned to four of our resident basketball experts to get their predictions on who will prevail in Saturday’s national semifinal contests and Monday’s championship game.
Enough of the introduction – let’s get to the prognostications and commentary, shall we? And by the way, after reading the analysis below, don't be afraid to chime in with your own thoughts in the comments thread.
Will Lovell
Semifinals
• Kentucky over Louisville: 80-70. Rick Pitino is no match for the NBA players at Kentucky
• OSU over Kansas: 70-68. Sullinger dominates Mr. Robinson
Championship game
• Kentucky over OSU: 75-68 – Kentucky is clearly the better team. OSU loses another national championship game.
(editor's note: this guy has a good track record of picking big games.)
Jeremy Cohen:
Will neglected to mention that if either Ohio State or Kansas win the whole shebang, he wins the firm pool and lots of bragging rights for the next year. If Louisville wins it all, then I win the pool and will make folks around here miserable for the foreseeable future.
As such, I will continue to ride the Big East champs all the way to the Winner’s Circle.
Semifinals
• Louisville 73, Kentucky 71
• Kansas 70, OSU 62
Championship game
• Louisville 74, Kansas 69
Charles (Buzz) Wood:
Semifinals
• Kentucky over Louisville: 84-75. Another rivalry game for the Cats during the Tournament. First Indiana goes down, the next is Louisville.
• OSU over Kansas: 69 – 60. After Danny Manning left for the head coaching job at Tulsa, the spark from courtside is gone.
Championship game
• Kentucky over OSU: 85- 70. It’s been a long time coming for the Cats.
Ryan Rivera:
Semifinals
• Kentucky over Louisville: 81-67. With a roster loaded with talent and a coach that is on a quest for his first national championship, I see Kentucky running away with this one on Saturday night.
• Ohio State over Kansas: 75-72. You can’t help but pull for Thomas Robinson with all he’s dealt with on a personal level over the past 18 months, but the bruisers from the Big Ten will be too much for the Jayhawks.
Championship game
• Ohio State over Kentucky: 82-77. As a Big Ten alum living in SEC Country, I have no choice but to pick the Big Ten over the SEC.
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