This Year's Final Four: LSU, UCLA, Florida and ... George Mason!?

There's this school in Virginia called George Mason. George Mason University has nearly 29,000 students and is located near Washington, DC.

And the George Mason Patriots are headed to the Final Four in basketball. They are the first team from a mid-major conference (the Colonial Athletic Association) to reach the Final Four since Indiana State in 1979. And Indiana State had this guy named Larry Bird on their team.

George Mason beat University of North Carolina, Michigan State and Connecticut on the way to the Final Four - all teams that have won the national title in the last six years. UNC won the title last year.

What makes George Mason so special? I think you can look back to another Cinderella story and another great upset - the 1980 US Men's hockey team. The USSR hockey team was jaded, they didn't really care about the game. They knew they were the best in the world.

The US hockey team were a bunch of kids who just were there to play after the game, there is a famous shot of a Russian player standing with his chin on his stick, watching the US kids celebrate.

George Mason are those same kids. George Mason plays with a sesne of fun that most future NBA stars just don't have. Most of these players on George Mason will go four years in college, graduate and move on. Maybe one or two will be in the NBA.

But to them, this is it. These NCAA tournament games are the biggest in their lives.

As if being the biggest underdog in NCAA history to be in the Final Four isn't enough to cheer for George Mason, try this on for size; the school is named after one of the founders of the U.S. Constitution. A founder who refused to sign the document because he wanted the abolishment of slavery included.

Go George Mason.

[Update]
Some stats from ESPN.com's 3 million or so user-made brackets:

The Final Four looks nothing like the users of ESPN.com's Tournament Challenge predicted.

More than 1.5 million people participated and of the more than 3 million entries submitted only four -- that's right, four -- picked a Final Four including Florida, George Mason, LSU and UCLA before the tournament started. Over 66 percent of entries had none of the Final Four teams correct and better than 29 percent had exactly two teams correct.

As you probably guessed, George Mason is the team that busted the most brackets. The Patriots were picked in 1,853 entries to make the Final Four, with only 677 putting them in the championship game and only 284 predicting George Mason winning the national championship. UCLA, on the other hand, got the most support -- more than 24 percent of all entries have the Bruins advancing to Indianapolis.

Users also paid dearly for pinning their hopes on the No. 1 seeds. Only 7 percent predicted a Final Four with none of the top seeds and just over 13 percent had a Final Four that did not include both Duke and Connecticut.

More interesting bracket tidbits from ESPN.com's Tournament Challenge.

Entries with one Final Four team left: 30%

Entries with three Final Four teams left: 0.1%

 

Entries with Florida in the Final Four: 11%

Entries with Florida winning it all: 1%

 

Entries with LSU in the Final Four: 5%

Entries with LSU winning it all: .4%

 

Entries with UCLA winning it all: 2%

 

Entries without Duke in the Final Four: 37%

Entries without UConn in the Final Four: 31%

Bookmark/Search this post with:

 •    •    •    •    •    •    •