Final Four thoughts

For the first time in my entire life, my projected NCAA tournament winner and runner-up are both still playing on Final Four weekend.

I had to change my strategy this year. Rather than taking a lot of time - time that was probably better spent elsewhere - to analyze matchups, strengths and weaknesses, trends and potential upsets, I sat down and just went with my initial gut feeling.

My time-consuming method last year led me to project a Final Four of Texas, Gonzaga, Connecticut and Villanova with Villanova beating Texas in the finals. Instead we had LSU, UCLA, George Mason and Florida. Not my best performance.

This year I went with Florida, UCLA, Georgetown and Texas A&M, with the Aggies being my only miss.

While this hasn't been the most captivating tournament, this is the best Final Four in a long time. All teams are loaded with future NBA superstars, and there could be as many as 10 first-round draft picks playing in Atlanta this weekend.

Six players - Florida's Joakim Noah, Al Horford and Corey Brewer, Ohio State's Greg Oden and Georgetown's Roy Hibbert and Jeff Green - could all be lottery selections.

It should be a great day of basketball on Saturday, and I'm sticking with my original pick: Florida will defeat Georgetown in the national title game.

Georgetown is one of the few teams that can match size with Ohio State, specifically Oden, but the Hoyas are also more versatile. Jeff Green has had a monster tournament.

As for Florida, that trio of players all came back to school for a reason. As long as Florida doesn't take too long to get going - which could be a real issue - the Gators should pick up their second consecutive championship.