JOSH HERWITT
Josh is CSTV.com's men's basketball editor and writes a weekly national column. E-mail here!
SAN ANTONIO -- We've waited all year for this.
Better yet, we've waited 23 years for this.
Since the day I was not even a year old, college basketball fans have been waiting to see what will finally take place this weekend in one of Texas' most historic cities.
Four No. 1 seeds, one Alamo and only one trophy.
That's the beauty of the Final Four, where champions are born and legacies are carved in stone in just a matter of days.
And what better four teams could you have entering this weekend's enticing national semifinals than what's on the table?
Because any way you look at it, you really couldn't have four better teams from four different regions of the country.
This is what we've waited for all year, and now finally, we'll get to see who will be left standing to cut down the nets on Monday night.
"I think it's great for college basketball," UCLA coach Ben Howland remarked. "You have arguably the four best teams making it all the way to the end of the tournament for the first time ever. It really is unbelievable. All four teams have a lot of experience returning from last year, and any one of them in my mind can win it."
There are no Cinderella stories like George Mason or Davidson. There are no Davids or Goliaths. There are no consensual predictions for one team more than another.
"Those guys were No. 1 seeds for a reason," North Carolina coach Roy Williams, who will face his former team Kansas Saturday in the national semifinals.
"It means they had a great year before the NCAA Tournament. And then if they're the last four teams playing, it means they've had a great tournament. For me, it pretty well proves they're the four best teams. Any of them can make a case for winning it all."
So for those tuning in all across the country on Saturday and Monday, it's everything you could hope for in a final weekend of the 2007-08 campaign.
"So many times when you're hoping to win, you play not to lose," Kansas coach Bill Self explained, "and we can't be that way. All the teams in the Final Four are saying the same thing -- you've got to go take what you want and be aggressive from the outset."
All four teams have taken and got what they've wanted so far, but only one will take home what everyone wants when the season first begins in early November.
"You've just got to believe that you're going do it," Self insisted. "We just need to be who we are."
At this point, that's all Kansas, North Carolina, UCLA and Memphis can be.
Because it's too late to start instituting new offensive sets or new defensive schemes with your season on the line and a national championship trophy staring you right in the face.
"We have so much at stake right now," offered Kansas junior Brandon Rush. "We're playing against North Carolina and we're in the Final Four with three other great teams. Every team is really supposed to come out and play this weekend."
Every team is supposed to come out and play as Rush said, but whether every team will, is a different story -- a story that Howland has seen the past two years with UCLA reaching the Final Four before ultimately ending its season to two-time national champ Florida.
On Saturday, the Bruins will have a chance to erase those memories with a test that may be just as hard.
"We know Saturday's game will be the toughest we'll have had all year," Howland said of his team's matchup against Memphis. "It's amazing how talented and athletic they are. They just pose so many problems we could sit here and talk about it for hours. We know we have our hands full."
Your hands can become pretty full when you're going up against a team as athletic and deep as John Calipari's, but maybe even more, against quite possibly the best point guard in the country.
"Their offense starts with Derrick Rose," Howland said. "Jason Kidd is a very good analogy, but with a better jump shot at the same stage. I can't think of much higher praise to give a player than to say, 'This point guard reminds me of Jason Kidd.'"
Memphis' game, though, doesn't end with Rose, and Calipari will be quick to point that out for a team that hasn't let the ongoing media spotlight this season tear it apart.
"This team, more than any other team I've ever coached, is tied to each other," explained the Tigers' eighth-year coach, who last reached the Final Four in 1996 with Marcus Camby and upstart UMass. "Derrick was able to come in and learn at his pace because we had a veteran team."
At 19-years-old, Rose is still just a kid, one with as much upside as any other freshman -- including UCLA's Kevin Love -- playing college basketball right now.
But that can quickly change in three days between a couple wins.
"The greatest thing for this team was they were on a mission and they still are," asserted Calipari. "They have done it all year."
On a Final Four stage no bigger than ever before, it's that same mission that North Carolina, Kansas and UCLA are just as eager to accomplish when it's all said and done.
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