Chris Johnson is an RTC Columnist. He can be reached @ChrisDJohnsonn. 

With the possible exception of Wichita State, there are no earth shattering secrets to reveal about the four teams remaining in the 2013 NCAA Tournament. This Final Four comes packaged with a little bit of everything: the odds-on favorite to win the whole thing (Louisville); a 900-win coach with a legendary zone defense at his disposal (Syracuse); a fifth-place Big Ten team catching fire at just the right time (Michigan); and the Shockers, the barely name-recognizable MVC power whose four-win run has not been given its proper due. It is a fun mix that sets up any number of possible outcomes in Atlanta this weekend. Will Louisville continue its robotic obliteration in the national semifinal and final rounds? Will Wichita State “shock” (better to get that pun out of the way sooner than later) the college basketball world? Can Michigan’s youth handle the national spotlight? Or will Syracuse’s zone throw two more offenses into utter dysfunction?

The Biggest underdog left in the field, Wichita State faces a tough match-up Saturday against Louisville (Getty Images).

All of these questions are worth thinking about, but the answers are never as clear as what’s on the surface. Louisville, at the moment, looks like the best team in the country; the Shockers look overmatched. But if you think even for a second analyzing Final Four match-ups is as simple as the above A > B comparison, think again: These games are inherently unpredictable. That’s what makes them fun – what makes this entire Tournament comprise the most entertaining three-week period in American sports.

By now you’re well-schooled on each of the remaining participants, but I’m going to try and take you deeper, to dig beneath the superficial qualities that make both match-ups objectively simple to figure out. Here, I’ll take you in different directions, raise hopefully enlightening statistical analysis and maybe, by the end, you’ll have a greater sense of how each team stands going into what should be another excellent weekend of NCAA Tournament hoops.

To start off our team preview series, which you can expect each day from now until Friday, the least known commodity on the block, Wichita State, is up to bat.

Pre-NCAA Tournament Capsule. One year removed from earning a #5 seed in the NCAA Tournament, a highly successful 27-6 win season and an MVC regular season championship, Wichita State entered 2012-13 with rightfully lowered expectations. You lose your top five scorers from a year ago, enter an overall improved league with an even more improved chief rival (Creighton), and you get the feeling a return trip to the NCAA Tournament maybe just isn’t in the cards this season. This was set up to be a textbook transition year, a season to take inventory and reload for the future. The spoils of 2011-12 – an at-large Tournament berth, regular season conference championship, that kind of stuff – were pretty much off the table. Now Gregg Marshall’s team has not only exceeded last season’s first-round Tourney knockout, but find themselves two wins away from the completely unthinkable: a first-ever national championship.

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The Circle of March, Final Four Edition. As we said goodbye to four more schools over the weekend, we’re left with just four others who think they have the goods to cut the nets down in Atlanta next Monday night. Louisville, Wichita State, Michigan and Syracuse — look at the symmetry! Only one of you can walk away with the elusive title (and CoM all to yourselves), but it will be well-deserved no matter which school it is.

Teams Eliminated From National Title Contention (03.30-31.13)

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The NCAA Tournament is here and there’s more news, commentary and analysis than any of us can possibly keep up with. To make things a little easier, we’ll bring you a list of daily links gathered about teams in each of the four regions all the way through the Final Four.

Midwest Region

• Louisville senior associate athletic director for media relations Kenny Klein tweeted a photo of Cardinals guard Kevin Ware moving around on crutches Monday morning, less than 24 hours after suffering a gruesome broken leg in the first half of Sunday’s victory over Duke.
• An outstanding column from Pat Forde of Yahoo! Sports discussing how the courage and strength shown by Louisville guard Kevin Ware after his horrific leg injury served to inspire the Cardinals to get past Duke and reach the Final Four.
• Has Louisville forward Gorgui Dieng improved his NBA Draft stock during the team’s NCAA Tournament run?
• Louisville guard Russ Smith was named Most Outstanding Player of the Midwest Regional. The dynamic junior has dominated the tournament thus far, as he is averaging 26 points per contest.
• Duke freshman swingman Rasheed Sulaimon was quite emotional after his subpar performance in Sunday’s loss to Louisville and in the process, he left no doubt that he truly cares about success and his teammates.
• Andrew Jones of FoxSportsCarolinas.com writes that Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski got just about everything he could out of this year’s Blue Devils.

West Region

• Wichita State is confident that it belongs in the Final Four. The ninth-seeded Shockers are in the Final Four for the first time since 1965.
• Wichita State coach Gregg Marshall reminded his team to “play angry” at halftime of the Shockers’ Elite Eight victory over Ohio State and after notching the Elite Eight victory, they are playing angry into the Final Four.
• Wichita State coach Gregg Marshall took Sunday to re-charge after Saturday’s thrilling Elite Eight victory over Ohio State, but he is back at work Monday preparing for Saturday’s Final Four match-up with top-seeded Louisville.
• Here is an interesting story about a man from Long Beach, California, who put a $10 bet on Wichita State to win the national title. The Shockers had 750-1 odds to cut down the nets at the beginning of the NCAA Tournament, so he would win $7,500 off that bet if they do end up winning the title.

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Walker Carey is an RTC correspondent. He filed this report after the Elite Eight NCAA Tournament game between #1 Louisville and #2 Duke in Indianapolis.

Three Key Takeaways.

1. Louisville’s mental toughness was incalculable. With 6:33 remaining in the first half, Louisville reserve guard Kevin Ware ran out to defend a three-point attempt from Duke guard Tyler Thornton and what seemed like a routine play turned into a very gruesome sight at Lucas Oil Stadium. Ware’s leg snapped as he landed and he suffered a broken leg. Ware’s teammates were deeply affected by the horrible scene on the court, as both guard Russ Smith and forward Chane Behanan were in tears. As Ware was taken off on a stretcher, Smith, Behanan, and forwards Gorgui Dieng and Montrezl Harrell were locked in an embrace near midcourt. The Cardinals led 21-20 when Ware went down and it would have been completely understandable if they had been unable to overcome the emotions that came with the injury. However, the Cardinals recovered in very impressive fashion – finishing the first half with a 35-32 lead and then exploding in the second half to outscore the Blue Devils 50-31 during the second 20 minutes of the game. Louisville coach Rick Pitino, his coaching staff, and senior point guard Peyton Siva deserve a great deal of credit for guiding the team through what was undoubtedly a very tough time.
2. The Cardinals flat out owned the second half. At the second half’s under-16 media timeout, the game was tied at 42, but from that point forward the game was completely dominated by the Cardinals. After the 42-42 tie, Louisville outscored Duke 43-21. The Cardinals’ defensive effort in the second half was so suffocating that they held a very good offense to just a 32.1% mark from the field over the final 20 minutes of the game. Duke stars Seth Curry, Ryan Kelly, and Mason Plumlee were never really able to make a huge impact and its guards Quinn Cook and Rasheed Sulaimon were held to a combined 4-of-21 performance from the field. Siva and Smith took over for Louisville on the offensive end of the court, seemingly getting into the lane at will. After shooting a respectable 46.4% from the field in the first half, the Cardinals were even better from the field in the second half, making 59.3% of their attempts in the second frame. Louisville completely dominated the second half and when it is able to put forth a performance like that, it is an impossible team to beat.
3. Louisville is the clear favorite to cut down the nets in Atlanta. When the Cardinals became the overall number one-seed on Selection Sunday, they were viewed as a definite favorite to advance to the Final Four in Atlanta. Two weeks later, Louisville has advanced to Atlanta and is the only one-seed still alive in the field. The Cardinals are set to play nine-seed Wichita State on Saturday in a semi-final where they will have a definite talent advantage even though the Shockers were able to pull off upsets of West Region one-seed Gonzaga and two-seed Ohio State. In the other semifinal, four seeds Michigan and Syracuse will meet for a right to advance to the national title game. While there will be a lot of talent on display next weekend, no team has as much talent and experience as Louisville and this is why it should definitely be viewed as the clear favorite to cut down the nets when all is said and done.

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RTC is reporting from the South Regional in Dallas, TX this weekend.

Three Takeaways.

1. Michigan played phenomenally well today. They came out of the gate on fire and never really let up. Sure there were a few moments where Florida looked like they might get back in it as they cut the lead to 11 with 17:35 left on a pair fo free throws by Scottie Wilbekin, but Michigan never let them back in it. It was perhaps the most impressive performance that the Wolverines have put together this season (only their 25-point win over a good, but still inferior VCU team comes close). The star of the game was Nik Stauskas, who Florida apparently didn’t realize is one of the best shooters in college basketball. Stauskas was nearly perfect in first half with 19 points as his only missed shot was a missed free throw at the end of the half after an idiotic Michael Frazier foul with 0.4 seconds left gave Stauskas three free throws. Stauskas finished with 22 points as the team went away from him int he second half. To leave it at Stauskas would be a disservice to the rest of the Wolverine team who overcame awful shooting performances from Trey Burke and Tim Hardaway Jr who were a combined 8-29 from the field. Mitch McGary added 11 points and 9 rebounds with most of them coming in an early run that set that tone for the game. Burke made up for his poor shooting with with 8 rebounds and 7 assists with just one turnover. After the game he said that when he is struggling from the floor he makes a concerted effort to facilitate and make sure he makes an impact on defense.
   

   Everybody was impressed with Michigan even if Beilein appeared unenthusiastic at this point (Credit: @nickbaumgardner)

2. On the other sideline it was a complete no-show by the Gators. For a team that was supposed to have experience on its side having made the past two Elite 8s the Gators seemed overwhelmed by the Wolverines. Outside of the ugly shooting from the field (41%) the Gators also failed to make the three-point shot a weapon as they only made 2 of 10 when they came into the game making 8 a game. When the other team goes 10 of 19 from beyond the arc as Michigan did you are not going to win many games. Looking back on the season this will be yet another Elite 8 appearance that ended in disappointment. It was a marvelous season for the Gators where they throttled opponents for much of the season, but in the end they lacked a dominant player to take over when the team was in trouble. It may not have been enough to overcome a hot Michigan team today, but it would have made things a lot more interesting. For Billy Donovan it will be back to the drawing board as he loses a ton of experience and will have to remake his team. The media will harp on Florida losing three straight Elite 8 games, but that undersells the difficulty in getting to that point, which is an impressive accomplishment in itself.
3. Looking forward for the Wolverines their performance today should scare every Syracuse fan, but that doesn’t mean we should expect them to catch fire from beyond the arc again in Atlanta. Coming into the game this was a team that shot 38% from three-point range and this 53% performance probably won’t be repeated although it might if Syracuse leaves Stauskas as open as Florida did. The Michael Carter-Willliams-Trey Burke match-up should be a great one and one that will attract a lot of NBA scouts, but there should be plenty of other great match-ups that we will get into next week.

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#1 Louisville vs. #2 Duke Midwest Regional Final (at Indianapolis, IN) – 5:05 PM ET on CBS

Dream materialized into reality on Friday night as Duke and Louisville wins created a must-see Midwest Regional final match-up. In a wacky NCAA Tournament where five of the top eight seeds have already fallen by the wayside, the Midwest region largely held to form. #1 vs. #2 in the regional final feels all to0 appropriate. Louisville will enter Sunday as the favorite, with a 13-game winning streak and Lucas Oil Stadium full of Cardinal Red in tow. They have shown few weaknesses in reaching this moment, but the Duke team standing between them and Atlanta is elite in their own right, and will undoubtedly offer the sternest test yet for the Cards. The Blue Devils were five points better than Louisville back on November 24, but will the presence of Gorgui Dieng (absent from that Battle 4 Atlantis loss) and a constantly growing Cardinal swagger be enough to script a different ending today?

Krzyzewski Has Worked His Magic Again This Year, But Can He Get Duke Back To The Final Four Again?

Even without Dieng, Louisville posted a +6 advantage on the glass in the November game between these two teams. Where his absence was felt was on the defensive end, where a bigger Duke front line was able to attack the rim at will. The Cards managed just one block (Dieng averages 2.5 a game) and Duke went to the line 27 times, where 23 makes helped the Devils overcome a poor shooting night from beyond the arc (5-20 as a team on threes). Having Dieng around now will shore up the interior defense, but Louisville must maintain emphasis on guarding the three-point line, because no team spaces the floor and shoots the three as well as Duke. Louisville may be the best defensive team in the country and grades well in almost every defensive metric, but their defense of the three point line is the weakest of those areas. The manic defensive aggression is a staple of the Cardinal defensive plan, but risks need be well calculated against a perimeter attack as lethal as Duke’s.

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#3 Florida vs. #4 Michigan – South Regional Final (Los Angeles, CA) – 7:05PM ET on CBS

Florida-Michigan may be an undercard to the ridiculous Louisville-Duke game later today, but that doesn’t mean that it will be of much lower quality as it features two teams that were in the top 10 for most of the season and in the top 5 for long stretches. It was only late season slides that kept these teams from being on the 1 or 2 line on Selection Sunday. Despite those late season struggles both teams have recovered and have managed to play excellent basketball leading up to today.

Florida is of course the darling of advanced metrics fans as they have put up impressive efficiency numbers, but many observers have questioned whether the team has the ability to win close games as they have lost all six games they have played this year that were decided by single digits. The flip side of that is that their other 29 wins have been by double digits showing just how effective they can be. The Gators will have a tough time making this their 30th double-digit win of the season as Michigan is much better than anybody they have beaten this season and probably better than anybody they have played this year with the possible exception of Arizona (one of Florida’s six single-digit losses). To beat the Wolverines the Gators will need to find a way to contain Trey Burke who rebounded from a scoreless first half to score 23 points to go along with 10 assists. The task of containing Burke will likely fall on Scottie Wilbekin, who compared Burke to Phil Pressey yesterday. While Pressey is an excellent player and creator he lacks the explosive offensive game of Burke. In addition, Burke has been exceptional in his ability to create while taking care of the ball as he came into the weekend with a 3.11 assist-to-turnover ratio, which ranks 4th in the nation.

Burke Will Be The Focus Of The Gator Defense

Burke may be the star for Michigan, but Florida will have to contend with a trio of outstanding perimeter players in Tim Hardaway Jr., Glenn Robinson III, and Nick Stauskas who all can provide scoring from the outside if Burke struggles to find his shot. On the inside, Patric Young will be matched up with Mitch McGary, who has recovered from a slow start to his freshman season, which he has openly admitted was due to his poor conditioning and effort, to lead the Wolverines in scoring in the NCAA Tournament with 19.7 points per game while making a ridiculous 75.7% of his shots from the field and has added 12.3 rebounds per game for good measure. Young should have the ability to overpower McGary, but based on the comments of the Gators yesterday (essentially admitted they knew nothing about him) they may be underestimating his game. And as Jeff Withey and Kansas found out that could be a very bad idea.

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Andrew Murawa is reporting from the West Regional in Los Angeles, CA this weekend.

1. Tekele Cotton Ain’t Scared. To set the scene, a 20-point lead with 11 minutes left had turned into a three-point lead with under three minutes remaining. The Shockers had committed five turnovers on their previous six possessions and hadn’t made a field goal in nearly five minutes. Wichita State players were arguing with each other, looking over at the bench at every loose ball for some sort of help and checking the clock, which was moving far too slow for their liking, at every chance they got. A game that had once been a snoozer looked very much like one that was going to turn into a surprising Ohio State comeback. But after breaking through Buckeye pressure and getting the ball in the halfcourt, the ball found its way to Tekele Cotton with less than ten seconds on the shot clock. Primarily known as a defender and dirty work type of player, Cotton, however, stepped into the three as calm and as cool as you would want, as if the world around him weren’t going to hell. And it was pure. Nothing but net. In that moment, one player putting aside the enormity of the situation and handling his business as if he were all alone in the gym, much of that confusion and disorder disappeared. And he wasn’t done yet. On the next offensive possession, after Fred Van Vleet missed and end-of-shot-clock three on a possession where the Shockers never got the ball inside the three-point line , Cotton tracked down the offensive rebound and turned a wasted 35-second possession into a 1:10 possession that ended in a Van Vleet jumper. Suffice it to say that likely without Cotton, the Shockers may have gotten shocked themselves.
   

   Demetric Williams Spending Some Quality Time With The West Regional Trophy. Williams, Despite Seeing His Minutes Slashed, Hit A Big Three In The First Half

2. Athletically Even. You look at the names of the front of the jerseys and the conferences in which these teams play and you expect, sight unseen, the Buckeyes to be the physically dominant team. That was very much not the case today: Wichita State was every bit the athletic equal of the Buckeyes, with all the height, strength, quickness and bounciness of the more familiar Buckeyes. And you got the feeling right from the start that the Shockers new that. But the Buckeyes are used to playing against their athletic equals on a regular basis, while this was all new for the Shockers. After dominating for 30-some minutes, when the Buckeyes turned up the energy, the Shockers got flustered for a bit, but their athleticism allowed them to recover and fend off a late charge.
3. Aaron Craft Exposed. The game plan for the Shockers on Craft was pretty clear: go under ball screens, give him looks at jumpers over a chance at penetration and go at him with the ball. And their game plan paid off. Craft did his a couple of his seven three-point attempts, but he missed all five of his two-point attempts and was at times a liability offensively, allowing the Shockers to sag off and clog up the lane. And defensively, on more than a couple occasions, Armstead blew by him on the way to the hole. Even more shockingly, when the Buckeyes finally started to show some pop, it was when Craft was on the pine for a brief two minute stretch. He came back on to help harass the Shockers into turnovers late, but this certainly wasn’t a great performance from the Buckeye point.

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RTC is reporting from the East Regional in Washington, DC, this weekend.

Three Key Takeaways.

The Boeheims, All Smiles in Washington Tonight

1. The Elusive Forty-Point Barrier. For the fourth consecutive NCAA Tournament game, Syracuse hit the 10-minute mark of the second half with its opponent having failed to score 40 points — Montana had 20, California had 31, Indiana had 37, and Marquette had 28 at that point. It’s very difficult to win games against quality competition when there’s a lid on the basket for most of the game, but make no mistake, these are not coincidences. The Syracuse 2/3 zone is playing as well as any defense in the NCAA Tournament right now, and for all but a short period during the first half when Davante Gardner found a seam in the zone at the foul line for a few jumpers, there simply wasn’t anything open for Marquette throughout. The Golden Eagles shot a putrid 12-of-53 from the field (22.6%), its worst shooting performance of the season, which included a bricklaying 3-of-25 (13%) from distance. Marquette hit its first and last three of the game, but sandwiched in between those two makes were a whole bunch of bad misses. The looks just weren’t there.
2. Marquette Made a Great Run. The Golden Eagles had a poor shooting game today, but Buzz Williams’ program took another step forward in making the Elite Eight and proving again just how good of a coach he is. They very easily could have lost either of their first two games at the subregional level, but they were able to get past both Davidson and Butler before a dominant Sweet Sixteen performance against Miami (FL). Williams spent a lot of time in the postgame press conference talking about the love he has for his players and the team chemistry that they’ve build up throughout the season. It’s clear that he’s a coach that the players really believe in, and he manages to get the most from his group every year as a result. Much like another prominent program in the great state of Wisconsin, it might be time to start slotting MU into the top tier of the Big East regardless of the talent that Williams has at his disposal. The program is in fantastic hands.
3. It’s the Zone, Stupid. Not to beat a dead horse here, but the Syracuse zone is playing as well as head coach Jim Boeheim has ever seen from his players. With the size and athleticism at the top of the zone from Michael Carter-Williams and Brandon Triche, open shots are very difficult to find. Through the four games of the NCAA Tournament, teams are hitting a collective 35.8% from two-point range and a ridiculous 15.4% from three-point range. Even if the Orange themselves are not making shots — like tonight when they hit only 38.0% from the field — they’re always going to be in good shape because of how difficult the zone is to solve. Both Michigan and Florida are well-coached and filled with shot-makers, but we’re having trouble seeing how either backcourt will be able to find openings any more than the Indiana or Marquette guards were. It says here that Louisville may be the only team still playing that has the personnel and the know-how to beat the SU defense.

Star of the Game. Michael Carter-Williams, Syracuse. The Syracuse point guard and East Region Most Outstanding Player had an all-around great floor game, scoring 12 points, grabbing eight rebounds, dishing out six assists and notching five steals. Most importantly, though, MCW played under control and only committed a single turnover. In his 75 minutes of action here in Washington, DC, over the weekend, the sometimes-wild Carter-Williams coughed up the ball three times. If he continues to play like that on the offensive end, Syracuse is as likely a team as any to win the 2013 national championship.

All-East Region Team: Davante Gardner, Vander Blue, James Southerland, CJ Fair, Michael Carter-Williams (MOP).

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After Thursday and Friday night’s games, the Circle of March is looking quite sparse. Starting with 310, there are now only eight schools with a shot at a national championship. Who will it be?

Teams Eliminated From National Title Contention (03.28-29.13)

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