University Kentucky Win NCAA Title

All that really matters is that Kentucky parlayed a roster full of NBA talent into a 67-59 victory Monday night over Kansas for the team's eighth national NCAA basketball title -- its first since 1998.

Kentucky's top freshman, Anthony Davis, had a rough shooting night, but John Calipari coached this team to a wire-to-wire victory -- a little dicey at the end -- to cap a season that cried for no less than a championship for their ol' Kentucky home.

"I wanted everybody to see, we were the best team this season," said the coach who finally has the championship that eluded him for all these years. "We were the best team. I wanted this to be one for the ages."

Doron Lamb, a sophomore with first-round-draft-pick possibilities, led the Wildcats (38-2) with 22 points, including back-to-back 3-pointers that put them up by 16 with 10 minutes left.

The Jayhawks (32-7), kings of the comeback all season, fought to the finish and trimmed that deficit to five with 1:37 left. But Kentucky made five free throws down the stretch to seal the win.

Davis' fellow lottery prospect, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, was another headliner, creating space for himself to score all 11 of his points in the first half.

Davis, meanwhile, might have had the most dominating six-point night in the history of college basketball, earning the nod as the most outstanding player. He finished with 16 rebounds, six blocks, five assists and three steals -- and made his only field goal with 5:13 left in the game. It was a surefire illustration of how the 6-foot-10 freshman can exert his will on a game even on a rare night when the shot isn't falling.

"Well, it's not me, it's these guys behind me," Davis said after his 1-for-10 performance. "They led us this whole tournament. This whole game I was struggling offensively, and I told my team, every time down, you all score the ball; I'm just gonna defend and rebound."

So much easier when you've got teammates like this. Davis is the likely first pick in the draft, though he said he hasn't decided yet whether he will come out, and Kidd-Gilchrist won't be far behind. Another first-round prospect, freshman Marquis Teague, had 14 points. And yet another, sophomoreTerrence Jones, had nine points, seven rebounds and two of Kentucky's 11 blocked shots.

"I love the fact AD goes 1 for 10, and you all say he was biggest factor of game," Calipari said. "He was 1 for 10. I asked these guys what they would do without scoring. You have an idea what he does."

Kansas also has a lottery pick in AP All-American Thomas Robinson. He was harassed all night by Davis and Jones and finished with 18 points and 17 rebounds on a 6-for-17 shooting night. He left upset, though not overly impressed with Davis, who he'll certainly see in "the association" over the next several years.

"He's not Superman," Robinson said. "He's just a great player. I don't mean to be disrespectful by it, but as a competitor I'm not going to sit here and give all my praise to someone I go up against."

The Jayhawks won the "B" League this year, as Calipari avenged a final-game loss to Bill Self back in 2008 when Cal was coaching the Tigers. Memphis missed four free throws in blowing a nine-point lead in that one. Kansas didn't get any such help this time.

Even so, it wasn't a bad season in Lawrence, considering where KU began.

Kansas lost four of its top five scorers off last year's roster. There were times early in the season when Self and his old buddy and mentor, Larry Brown, would stand around at practices and wonder if this was a team that could even make the tournament. It did. Won its eighth straight conference title, too.

"Nobody even expected us to be here in the first place, for us to have a great season," KU guard Travis Releford said. "And we did. We were able to compete for a championship. We had a great year."

None of this, however, was for the faint of heart. The Jayhawks trailed by double digits in three of their five tournament games leading to the final and played every game down to the wire. They fell behind by 18 late in the first half of this one and this time, there was no big comeback to be made; not against these guys.

"We knew coming in that we had been in situations like that before," Releford said. "We played like that all year. We figured we'd come out in the second half and run how we did. It just wasn't good enough."

Davis realised early this was no shoot-first night for him at the Superdome, and Calipari all but told him to cool it at halftime.

"I said, `Listen to me, don't you go out there and try to score," the coach said.

Davis listened. Sporting his near-unibrow, which the UK Wildcat mascot also decided to paste on, he endured the worst shooting night of a short college career in which he makes 64 percent. No big deal. He set the tone early on defense, swatting Robinson's shot twice, grabbing rebounds, making pretty bounce passes for assists.

Early in the second half, he made a steal that also could have been an assist, knocking the ball out of Robinson's hands and directly to Jones, who dunked for a 46-30 lead.

Then, finally. With 5:13 left in the game, he spotted up for a 15-foot jumper from the baseline that swished for a 59-44 lead, putting a dagger in one of Kansas' many comebacks.

"He was terrific," Self said. "The basket he made was one of the biggest baskets of the game."

The crowd, a little more full of Kentucky fans than Kansas, went crazy. If this guy only stays one year and only makes one shot, they're fine with that.

It's the new normal at Kentucky, where Adolph Rupp set a standard, Rick Pitino lived up to it for a while, then Calipari -- hardly the buttoned-down type -- was hired to bring back the glory.

He goes for the best player, no matter what their long-term goals.

Normally, the prospect of losing all those players in one swoop would have people thinking about a tough rebuilding year.

But Cal has mastered the art of rebuilding on the fly.

He's the coach who brings in the John Walls, Brandon Knights and Derrick Roses (at Memphis) for cups of coffee, lets them sharpen up their resumes, then happily says goodbye when it becomes obvious there's nothing left for them to do in school.

Last year, the formula resulted in a trip to the Final Four that ended with a crushing loss to Connecticut in the semifinals.

This year, Davis and Kidd-Gilchrist came to Lexington with big-time bona-fides, and they didn't disappoint. Kentucky lost only twice all season -- once on a buzzer-beater at Indiana, the second time last month in the SEC tournament title game to Vanderbilt, in the arena across the way from the Superdome.

The trip to New Orleans might have been, as Calipari put it, just what the doctor ordered for a team that could sometimes border on arrogance.

They rebounded nicely for the real tournament, and through it all, the coach refused to apologise for the way he recruits or how he runs his program. Just playing by the rules as they're set up, he says, even if he doesn't totally agree with them. Because he refuses to promise minutes or shots to any recruit and demands teamwork out of all of them, he says he comes by these players honestly.

He has produced nine first-round picks in the last four drafts with a few more coming. This latest group will have an NCAA title in tow and the everlasting love of a fan base that bleeds basketball.

When it was over, all that Kentucky talent ran to the corner of the court, got in a group huddle and jumped up and down like the kids they really are. Will Calipari coach any of them again?

"What I'm hoping is there are six first-rounders on this team," the coach said. "I'm fine with that. That's why I've got to go recruiting on Friday."

Sullinger gets Ohio Past Orange

Ohio State coach Thad Matta sized up his team in the middle of the season and had it figured for an early loss when the NCAA tournament came around.

The final weekend of March Madness is next, and the Buckeyes will be there.

Jared Sullinger recovered from first-half foul trouble to score 19 points and grab seven rebounds, helping Ohio State beat top-seeded Syracuse 77-70 on Saturday to advance to the Final Four in New Orleans. The second-seeded Buckeyes will play the winner of Sunday's Midwest Regional final between North Carolina and Kansas.

"We're not going down to New Orleans for a vacation. It's a business trip," said Sullinger, who picked up his second foul 6 minutes into the game and did not return the rest of the half. "These guys have played without me before, so they know what they have to do."

Deshaun Thomas scored 14 points with nine rebounds for Ohio State (31-7), which led by eight points with 59 seconds to play and held on after the Orange cut it to three. The Buckeyes made 13 of 14 free throws in the final 68 seconds and finished 31 of 42 from the line.

Ohio State is making its first trip to the Final Four since 2007, when it lost in the national championship game to Florida. They had lost in the regional semifinals in each of the past two seasons, and Matta wasn't even sure they would make it that far after a series of unimpressive practices.

When the Buckeyes, who spent five weeks as the No. 2 team in the nation, closed out February with three defeats in five games -- including a home loss to Wisconsin on Feb. 26 -- Matta had more reason to worry.

But he got the response he was hoping for.

"That loss opened their eyes and said, 'Hey, maybe we're not as good as we think we are,' " Matta said. "Maybe it got us pointed in the right direction."

Brandon Triche scored 15 points, and Baye Keita had 10 rebounds for Syracuse (34-3). The Orange were hoping for a return trip to New Orleans, where they won their only national championship in 2003.

In a tightly officiated game that left Sullinger on the bench in foul trouble for most of the first half and Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim not-quite muzzled after picking up a technical foul, it came down to free throws. Syracuse was called for 29 fouls -- its most in more than three years -- despite playing its usual 2-3 zone.

Boeheim didn't like several of the fouls called.

He picked up a technical for objecting to a foul in the first half, and he escaped another in the second half despite shouting his profane complaint across the court. At one point, he turned to Jeff Hathaway, the chairman of the NCAA selection committee who was sitting near the Syracuse bench, and made his case in person.

Afterward, Boeheim gave a terse "no comment" when asked if the officials hurt the flow of the game. A statement from the officiating crew chief said Boeheim was given a technical for being out of the coaching box and gesturing about a call.

"We're not going to blame it on the refs," said guard Scoop Jardine, who had 14 points and six assists. "I think we had a chance to win the game no matter what, with the refs or without them giving us any calls."

The Orange went to the line 25 times, making 20 foul shots.

The frequent whistles left both teams struggling to get into a groove in the first half -- there were only four baskets in the last 9:30. That seemed to be good news for Ohio State, which managed to stay with the No. 1 seed despite getting only 6 minutes from Sullinger, the star of the Buckeyes' East Regional semifinal win over Cincinnati.

"We got Sullinger in foul trouble early and we didn't take advantage of it," Boeheim said. "You know when he comes back in he's going to be difficult, and he was."

Syracuse was already without 7-footer Fab Melo, who missed the tournament with academic issues, and replacement Rakeem Christmas picked up two quick fouls early in the second half to leave him with four.

Ohio State opened a 46-36 lead with under 14 minutes to play. Syracuse scored eight of the next nine points to make it a one-point game, but the Orange never could get back in the lead.

They trailed by eight with 59 seconds left and cut it to three, but they needed the Buckeyes to miss free throws, and that didn't happen.

The loss ended a tumultuous season for Syracuse that began with accusations by two former ball boys that they were sexually abused in the 1980s by Bernie Fine, a longtime Syracuse assistant coach. Boeheim vigorously defended him, but later walked back his support in the face of new information. Fine, who was fired Nov. 27, has not been charged and has denied any wrongdoing.

The school also revealed this month that it had self-reported possible violations of its internal drug policy by members of previous teams; the NCAA is investigating.

But the biggest hit might have been the loss of Melo, Syracuse's leading rebounder who also averaged 5.8 points per game. Even without him, the Orange beat North Carolina-Asheville and Kansas State to earn a trip to Boston, then survived a pair of potential game-winners to beat Wisconsin 64-63 on Thursday and advance to the regional final.

Ohio State reached the round of eight by beating Loyola of Maryland and then Gonzaga before winning a Battle of the Buckeye State against Cincinnati in Boston on Thursday night. The Buckeyes were one of four teams from Ohio in the round of 16, and the only one to make it to the regional finals.

Ohio State is also the last remaining team from the Big Ten, which placed six teams in the NCAA tournament and four in the round of 16.

Louisville Dieng Stops Michigan

Louisville figured its game against Michigan State to be low-scoring, a natural expectation with two of the nation's best defenses butting heads.

The Cardinals had one big advantage: Gorgui Dieng.

Dominating inside, Dieng blocked seven shots and altered several others to anchor a stifling defense that helped Louisville knock off top-seeded Michigan State 57-44 Thursday night in the West Regional semifinals.

""He was very disruptive," Michigan State's Draymond Green said. "We're not going to back down from anyone. We took it at him. He pulled off some great blocked shots. That's what he does. That's his strength."

The Cardinals (29-9) relied on 3-point shooting in the first half and moved inside in the second to befuddle the Spartans.

Their defense gave Michigan State fits all night.

Instead of trapping like it normally does, Louisville played a bait-and-switch game with the Spartans and Green, their multitalented forward. The idea was to jump out on screens and to make the Spartans work on every possession and, hopefully, wear them out.

It worked, in large part because Dieng was in the back to clean things up.

Tent-pole thin when he arrived at Louisville, the Senegalese center worked hard on his body and his game, developing into the one player the Cardinals had to have on the floor during his sophomore season. When he got in foul trouble, Louisville labored, so one of the key parts of coach Rick Pitino's game plan was to make sure the Cardinals protected him.

They did and he protected the rim in return, getting five of his blocked shots in the second half to prevent Michigan State from mounting any kind of rally. The Cardinals move on to the West final against Marquette or Florida on Saturday.

"When we came here, we know (what) we're going to face," said Dieng, who also had five points, nine rebounds and three steals while matching the school record for blocked shots in an NCAA tournament game. "We knew we were going to come to a war. We need to be tougher than them to win this game."

Michigan State (29-8) started slow and never got going against Louisville's amoebic defense.

The Spartans got shots they wanted and usually make but couldn't get many to fall against Dieng or anyone else, shooting 28 percent while being outscored 20-14 inside by the leaner Cardinals.

Green had 13 points and 16 rebounds in his final game for Michigan State.Brandon Wood added 14 points for the Spartans, who were outscored 17-4 off the bench.

"They disrupted us a little bit and we didn't have enough guys who could play well," Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said.

This sweet matchup of top programs featured two of college basketball's best short-preparation coaches.

Pitino has used his speed-the-opponent-up system to reach the Final Four five times, becoming the first coach to lead three different schools to the national semifinals. Once past the NCAA tournament's first week, he's had a knack for guiding his team further along the bracket, going 10-0 in the regional semifinals.

Izzo has spent his 17 years at Michigan State building teams that can handle the rigors of the Big Ten or switch to greyhound mode when the opponent plays fast. He's been as consistent as any coach in the game, leading the Spartans to the Final Four six times, including the 2000 national title, and 10 trips to the regionals round the past 15 years.

Izzo played the right hand the last time these two basketball brains met, taking the Spartans to the 2009 Final Four after they found a way to break Louisville's pressure.

Pitino had something up his sleeve this time.

With Michigan State bogging the game down, the Cardinals struggled early, missing 12 of their first 13 shots. They snapped out of it by hitting 3s.

Russ Smith hit a pair, Jared Swopshire and Chris Smith each dropped one in and, even Dieng -- 0 for 2 in his career previously -- got one to go in.

Swopshire closed it out with a 3 from the corner to put the Cardinals up 23-18 at halftime. Louisville was 7 of 15 from the arc in the half, but got almost nothing inside, hitting 1 of 15 shots from two-point range.

"Our game plan was to cut off the paint," Izzo said. "I thought we did actually a very good job of that. And yet they hit some 3s."

Louisville shifted gears to open the second half, getting two layups and a dunk to keep its cushion. Swopshire followed with an alley-oop to Siva for the point guard's first points, then stole the inbound pass to set up two free throws by Russ Smith that put the Cardinals up 35-25.

Michigan State managed a short run to get within four, but Louisville used its pressure to get a couple of steals and baskets to go up 43-32. Dieng followed with a couple more swats -- one on Keith Appling that sailed into the stands -- to keep the Spartans at arm's length.

"He played an exceptional game," Pitino said.

Iowa State Rock Champions

The national champions are one and done, thanks to Iowa State.

When Jim Calhoun and Connecticut will be back in the NCAA tournament is anybody's guess.

"We're talking about tonight's game. We're not talking about me," Calhoun said after Iowa State's 77-64 victory over Connecticut in the NCAA tournament Thursday night. "I'm going to get on the plane tomorrow, go home and do what I usually do and meet up with the team on Monday. My own personal thing, I don't think it has any relevance, to be honest with you."

Chris Allen led four Cyclones in double figures with 20 points, and Iowa State scored its last 14 at the free throw line to beat UConn, the first time since UCLA in 1996 that the defending champs have lost in the opening game. Calhoun didn't even wait for the final buzzer, heading for half court with about four seconds left to congratulate Iowa State coach Fred Hoiberg.

It is only the second loss in the opening game of the NCAA tournament for UConn.

"I'm surprised as anybody, clearly," Calhoun said. "I imagine our players are, too."

For the eighth-seeded Cyclones, meanwhile, it's their biggest victory in a season of them, having knocked off Kansas and Baylor during Big 12 play.

Royce White had a double-double with 15 points and 13 rebounds, and Scott Christopherson also had 15 for the Cyclones. Iowa State shot 48 percent from the floor and had a whopping 41-24 edge in rebounds.

Next up for Iowa State: Overall No. 1 seed Kentucky in the third round of the South Regional on Saturday. The Wildcats routed Western Kentucky earlier on Thursday.

For the Huskies, the future is far less certain. This could be Connecticut's last tournament until at least 2014, with the Huskies facing a ban on tournament play next year because of the past academic problems. Although Calhoun insists he hasn't made any retirement plans, he's had a history of health problems -- he's a three-time cancer survivor -- and he turns 70 in May.

"This game was a disappointment; this season was not a disappointment to me," Calhoun said. "I knew this team could be really good, but we just didn't reach that level."

Shabazz Napier led the Huskies with 22, and Jeremy Lamb had 19. But Connecticut could never get into a rhythm and had no answer for the quicker, more aggressive Cyclones.

"It's very disappointing to have to end the season this way," Napier said.

The Cyclones arrived in Louisville with no shortage of swagger, smirking when asked if they were intimidated by the defending national champions.

And they wasted no time backing up their big talk, jumping on the Huskies from the opening tip. It took Calhoun less than two minutes before he'd seen enough, jumping up to call a timeout.

"We wanted to attack the boards more and whatever 3s we got, we took," Allen said. "At the end of the day, we were trying to get it in, get rebounds and do all the little stuff."

After leading by as much as 22 in the first half, Iowa State (23-10) withstood a UConn rally in the second half. Ryan Boatright went on a one-man tear, making three straight baskets to pull Connecticut within 58-52 with 8:24 to play.

"Once we cut it to six, I felt like if we dug down a little deeper maybe it would crack," Boatright said.

But the Huskies (20-14) couldn't get any closer, missing their next four shots and going scoreless for more than five-and-a-half minutes.

Iowa State, meanwhile, got a big layup from Bubu Palo and an even bigger bucket from Allen.

Allen has played more NCAA tournament games than any player in the 68-team field after making back-to-back Final Fours with Michigan State in 2009 and 2010, and his experience showed. He chased down his miss on a 3 from the corner and went up and under the basket, scoring to put Iowa State back in front 63-52 with 4:15 to play.

UConn could never make another run, and all the Cyclones had to do was convert their free throws. As the game wound down, White pointed at Iowa State's radio crew and said, "I told you, didn't I?"

NCAA investigations and questions about Calhoun's future have clouded the glow from UConn's third national title all season.

Calhoun sat out the first three games of the Big East season for failure to maintain control of his program when it was charged with NCAA violations. Boatright missed nine games, including six at the beginning of the season, after an NCAA investigation found he and his family took more than $8,000 in impermissible benefits before he enrolled at Connecticut.

Despite the turmoil, the Huskies won 12 of their first 13 games.

Then things fell apart, in spectacular fashion.

UConn lost 11 of its next 16, including a 21-point blowout by Louisville followed by an 18-point rout at the hands of Syracuse. Back problems forced Calhoun to take a monthlong leave, and the Huskies went 3-5 in his absence. He returned for the regular-season finale against Pittsburgh after back surgery, and UConn responded with three straight wins before losing a close one to Syracuse in the Big East tournament.

Though Calhoun talked about having a second chance in the tournament, Iowa State put a quick end to that.

"You saw the game," Calhoun said, "we played very poorly. We deserved to lose the game."

Barack Unveils Final Four

President Barack Obama has Kentucky, Ohio State, Missouri and North Carolina in the Final Four of his NCAA men's basketball bracket, which will be unveiled in its entirety Wednesday on ESPN.

Obama filled out a bracket for the fourth consecutive year. He picked North Carolina to win the 2009 title -- and was correct.

He's gone with Kansas the past two seasons, and the Jayhawks were eliminated early both times.

His national championship pick will be unveiled at 9 a.m. ET Wednesday on "SportsCenter."

Segments from ESPN.com reporter Andy Katz's interview with the president will begin airing at 11 p.m. ET Tuesday night.

There also will be coverage on ABC's "Good Morning America."

The president has Baylor, St. John's, Connecticut and Notre Dame in his women's bracket, which will be unveiled Friday.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said he won't be filling out a tournament bracket.

"I'm not plugged in well enough this year to do that," Romney said Tuesday during a brief exchange with reporters travelling with him in Missouri.