Tonight, at AT&T Stadium, the 2014 NCAA Basketball champion will be crowned for the first time ever between a #7 seed and an #8 seed.
On one side, Kentucky, the preseason #1, which is so young, yet so talented. Despite a lot of growing pains through the year by the freshmen, John Calipari's team is back in the championship game after missing the tournament a year ago. Their road to the championship has been impressive, as they have taken out three Final Four teams from a year ago (Wichita State, Louisville, Michigan), as well as an experienced, well-coached Wisconsin team on Saturday night. Although the skill and athleticism of future NBA lottery picks Julius Randle, Andrew Harrison, Aaron Harrison (three straight game-winning three-pointers), and James Young has been simply amazing to watch, it has been their poise in crunchtime against more experienced teams that has the team the favorite for the title tonight.
On the other side, UConn has been equally impressive in pulling upsets on its way to the championship. They've taken out two popular national championship picks by many, in Michigan State and the #1 overall seed, Florida (my pick to win it all at the beginning of the tournament). Riding the incredible play of senior guard Shabazz Napier, junior forward DeAndre Daniels, and junior guard Ryan Boatright, the Huskies have also played shutdown defense through their run to the title, and held a veteran Florida team to just 53 points on Saturday night.
The key in the game will be the pace of play. While Kentucky wants to play more up-tempo, UConn will want to slow the game down and play a low-scoring game. The key matchup in this game will be in the backcourt, with the Harrison twins against Napier and Boatright. While both Harrisons have NBA-potential and all the talent in the world, Napier and Boatright are more experienced and may use that to their advantage in pressuring the twins into mistakes. In the end, although Kentucky is the favorite and may have more talent, I think UConn wins, based on their experience and defense, giving Kevin Ollie a fairytale end to an amazing second year as a head coach.
My pick: UConn
My pick: UConn
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