Come Monday, Louisville will play Michigan for the national championship, according to an early betting line from Las Vegas.
Louisville is favored by a gigantic 10 points over the Final Four’s lone long shot, Wichita State, according to RJ Bell of Pregame.com. Louisville is the second-biggest Final Four favorite in the 64-team era, which began in 1985. The biggest favorite was Duke (by 11) over Michigan State in 1999.
What about Michigan-Syracuse? That’s expected to be a much closer contest, with Michigan favored by two.
If you’re jumping on the Wichita State bandwagon, you may want to think again. For 24 consecutive years, the NCAA champion has been a No. 4 seed or better. The Shockers are at No. 9 and came out of the West Region, perhaps the weakest regional.
But don’t count Cardinals coach Rick Pitino among those surprised by Wichita State.
“We just thought of coaches who we thought who would move on,” he said. “I was talking with my son and I said I thought Wichita State has a great chance of being a surprise team to the Final Four.”
Tournament TV ratings up
The NCAA tournament’s television ratings for the regional semifinals and finals are up 13 percent from last year.
The games Thursday through Sunday on CBS and TBS averaged a 7.0 rating and 14 share, up from a 6.2/12 last season.
CBS and Turner said Monday the tournament is averaging a 6.2/13 overall this year, the best since 2005.
Ratings measure the percentage of American homes with televisions tuned into a program. Shares represent the percentage of those with TVs in use at the time.
Cards No. 1 TV money-maker
Louisville is the No. 1 team in TV ratings for college basketball.
Also not a surprise to Pitino.
“According to Forbes magazine, nine years in a row now we’ve been the No. 1 revenue producer in college basketball,” he said. “As a matter of fact, we made $44 million, which was more than the Green Bay Packers and $15 million more than our second-place finisher, North Carolina.”
Praise for a mentor
Wichita State coach Gregg Marshall, who learned at the knee of College of Charleston coach John Kresse, gave props to Kresse when asked whether making a Final Four in Division I was necessary for career validation.
“Coach Kresse spent most of his career as an NAIA coach and he did make a Final Four,” Marshall said. “It was just at Kemper Arena in Kansas City and he won it all. …
“I just think there’s a lot of good coaches that don’t ever get this opportunity.”
Praise for own team
Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim joined the chorus on how well his team is playing.
“We’ve played the (2-3) zone the best that we played it probably in all the years we’ve been playing zone,” he said.
Although Syracuse has been known for playing zone defense, Boeheim says it wasn’t until 2010 that the Orange went almost exclusively to it.
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