NCCA Men's March Madness Hoops Now Down to Final Four

With the completion of today's two games, the NCAA men's basketball championship "March Madness" tournament has now come down to the vaunted Final Four, a great milestone in itself for many schools.  Among them are the Florida Atlantic University Owls, based in south Florida in Boca Raton where my beloved father spent his last days in 2013.  This was their last year in Conference USA...they're jumping later this year to the American Athletic Conference.  Neither conference gets much national attention or respect, so it surprised many to see this team, seeded only #9 in their region, win it to advance to next Saturday's semifinal round with a very close and exciting game against Kansas State, 79-76.  Although I was rooting for the Owls, I don't understand why the Wildcats, down by only three points in the game's closing seconds, had two different possessions but didn't shoot for a three-pointer...that must have really frustrated their fans.  Along with FAU, Connecticut advanced to the final showdown with a complete thrashing of Gonzaga, 82-54...their pinpoint passing and positioning on offense is amazing to behold.  The Huskies to me are the strongest team in this year's tournament although they were only seeded #5 in their region...not remotely even one close game so far in the six they've won to get to this point.  Those were Saturday's games.  Today's contests pitted San Diego State against Creighton and Miami against Texas.  By the way, you might take note that all of the top seeds were eliminated in earlier rounds and Texas was the only #2 seed left with this weekend's games...none of the brackets filled out at the tournament's start came close to predicting this scenario!  In today's games San Diego State somehow managed to outlast Creighton 57-56 although neither seemed to shoot very well. In the other "my" Miami Hurricanes were 13 points well into the second half and didn't seem to have an answer to the Longhorns' offense, but they managed to storm back and win it 88-81.  So half the Final Four is from South Florida.  Florida Atlantic plays San Diego State in one game and it's Miami vs. Connecticut in the other.  Whoever wins that latter contest should be the favorite to win the championship game. I'm looking forward to following the two semifinal games next Saturday, but I'll be at work when the championship game takes place Monday evening.  At this juncture, to me Connecticut should be the strong favorite to win it all, but my heart lies with the Florida teams.  CBS is covering the games on TV...