Putting the "M" in Madness!

Somewhere, Dick Vitale's wife is searching the home's storage room for the emergency resuscitation machine, as Duke and Butler are just hours away from tonight's championship game.

He'll need it, but so will Joe Lunardi and all those who predicted that Butler would be ousted from the tournament in the early rounds. On the other hand, I didn't choose them to make it to the Final Four or even the Elite 8, so consider me lumped in with the rest of the nay sayers.

The reality is that most connoisseurs of March Madness typically expect to see a Michigan State, a UConn, or a Duke in the final day of play, not a team from the Horizon League, who received about as much airtime as Philippine Idol did on ESPN this season.

So I ask myself the question: During the regular season, what brings a team to the forefront of media commentary, not including academic suspensions or sex scandals?

Tradition is the first reason that comes to mind, particularly on the East Coast, where more than a handful of schools have long standing traditions of winning in their respective conferences or in the tournament. North Carolina, Indiana, Wake Forest, just to name a few. On the other hand, UCLA, a team with one of the most celebrated winning histories in college basketball, has dropped off the radar in recent years. One could attribute this to the scattered personality the Bruin's have exhibited in the past five years or so, but then I think of a team like Georgia Tech, who not until this year has produced much excitement, is a regular on the nightly broadcast lineup.

High Scoring, energetic players also bring a team to a nationally talked about level. With Kentucky for example, the "Tradition" box has already been checked, but in combination with a long standing win history, they also bring forth players like Wall and Cousins, who by any one's standards are noteworthy of media attention.

This year's tournament big dog is certainly Duke, and through much research (no beakers or DNA extractions involved) are the favorite to beat Butler later on this evening. Not only do they bring a coach whose last name is more difficult to spell than the leading Russian figure skating duo, they have earned themselves consistent NCAA tournament appearances in the last 15 years.

Duke's players aren't too shabby either. Singler, Scheyer, and Smith account for the majority of the Blue Devil's scoring, and they can rotate big men like Zoubek and the Plumlees in and out like musical chairs.

Their demeanor is also what makes opponents and many a Duke hater so frustrated. They're always so calm and collected with the exception of maybe a Zoubek flying elbow or two.

Unlike Duke, Butler can't begin to compete with the Blue Devil's tradition, nor do they have a trio that has been of any mention this year up until the tournament. The squad with two guys that I can never separate (Matt Howard and Gordon Hayward), rely on defense and a well thought-out half court game, which might thwart even Kzryzewski's best strategy for a victory.

However, while the Bulldogs may have elicited more headlines than Duke in the past few weeks, just as a result of pulling on their Cinderella slipper, ultimately, the big question is whether or not the Bulldogs will return next season, and the season after that and so on to establish themselves as a legitimate and consistent threat in the whole of the NCAA.

I sure hope the carriage doesn't return to pumpkin form, and we see Coach Steven's team for years to come.