An NCAA Tournament full of incredible performances by midmajors has now given way to four #1 seeds in the Final Four, something that’s never been accomplished in the NCAA Tournament. While some people complain about the “chalk” of this Final Four, we’re sure to close this thing out with three incredible matchups. Without further ado, a brief breakdown of the Final Four, which begins at 6:00 PM EST tomorrow.

UCLA vs. Memphis
Certainly the more intriguing game of the two, to me anyway. Both teams have been national championship contenders the last few years, but both have needed enormous contributions from true freshmen to get over the top this year. Lets start with UCLA, a team that’s been raped and pillaged by twice defending champ Florida in the last two tournaments. We know the contributers: Collison, Westbrook, Shipp, Mbah a Moute and to a much lesser extent, Mata(-Real). But without Kevin Love, this team is already out of the tournament. The Pac-10 Player of the Year has been even better than advertised. While CBS has stroked themselves to his outlet passes, Love deserves all the praise he’s received.

As for Memphis, they’ve been proving people wrong all season long. Hell, I had them losing to Pitt in the Sweet 16 and when they got into the Elite Eight, I thought they’d get spanked by Texas. Nope. You can have Beasley, Mayo, Love or any other freshman phenom. If I have the 1st overall pick, I’m taking Derrick Rose. I’ll admit to not having seen much of Rose throughout the Conference USA season but against Texas, I saw all I needed to see. Rose will be a Chris Paul/Deron Williams type of player in the NBA. No doubt about it. After dominating against guys like Drew Neitzel and D.J. Augustin, I see Rose getting the best of Darren Collison as well.

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Note: We’d like to apologize for the technical difficulties we’ve been having this week. We’re attempting to sort things out and hopefully, we’ll be up and running consistently this weekend.

Usually, we’d expect a battle of this magnitude to take place in North Carolina between UNC and Duke. Not this time. Tomorrow’s matchup between Tennessee and Memphis, the 38th regular season meeting between a #1 and #2, is even more significant because of the long-standing rivalry these two teams have had.

“These 1-2 matchups are usually reserved for Tobacco Road or some place in Indiana or Ohio,” Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl said Thursday.

“And the fact that it’s in Tennessee is something that I think all high school basketball players and high school coaches and different folks that love basketball in the state of Tennessee are certainly proud of.”

So who do I like? At home, it’s difficult to pick against Memphis, who haven’t lost at FedEx Forum in their last 47 games, the longest home winning streak in Division I hoops. Also, who will step it up for Tennessee against Memphis’ beasts inside? Joey Dorsey is probably big enough to start for Philip Fulmer’s offensive line.

It’s Memphis’ size and athleticism against Tennessee’s outside shooters. It’s Bruce Pearl’s orange blazer against John Calipari’s ego. The winner of this game can likely pencil in a #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Tip-off is set for 6 p.m. on ESPN.