Final Four Challenge: Then there were three

SANDPOINT — Of the 60 Bee readers to take the Final Four Challenge, and chance to win $75 in cash, just three still have all four of their teams alive in the bracket: John Maras (Baylor, Gonzaga, Kansas, Kentucky), Ranae Myers (Baylor, Gonzaga, Michigan, North Carolina) and Bill Temple (Baylor, Arizona, Kansas, UCLA).

That’s not to say the many entries with three teams still alive (or two for that matter, depending) aren’t in the running, as the upsets of Duke, Louisville and Villanova proved in the first week. There is still a wide variety of picks and different scenarios to play out that can swing the contest, including a few folks with higher seeds Michigan and Wisconsin in the their Final Fours. Hitting on dark horse picks has swung this contest in the past.

And as one of the many hoops fans around the country for whom the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary entitled “I hate Christian Laettner” resonated so strongly, Sunday was a fun night. Long story short, did anyone else enjoy seeing Duke upset by South Carolina? Those are the games that make the tourney so great.

A lot of the entries are alive and well with the hometown favorite Zags, who didn’t look like anything special but navigated the land mines of the first two rounds by posting wins.

Their next matchup against West Virginia scares me, for a few key reasons. One, Bobby Huggins goes 10 deep, and they press and trap every inch of the court every second of the game. Nobody plays like that in the West Coast Conference, and it’s extremely difficult to prepare for that tempo if you’ve never faced it. Think Nolan Richardson and Arkansas’ “40 minutes of hell” from back in the day.

Secondly, it’s simply not a good matchup for the Zags as far as personnel. West Virginia is much smaller and quicker, and whatever edge Karnowski gives on the blocks with his size could be negated by a blistering pace.

Lastly, I think Nigel Williams-Goss is an elite closer, the guy who wants the ball in crunch time and delivers. But having played in maybe five games all season that went down to the wire, who really knows? He’ll get his chance against the gritty Mountaineers, who are battle tested nightly in the Big 12 Conference against the likes of Kansas, Baylor and Iowa State.

A secret weapon is the springy and athletic Jonathan Williams, who shoots jump hooks down at the rim and will be a key player against the Mountaineers.

It will be a fun ride to see if one of the most offensively proficient and big lineups in the college game can handle the Mountaineers’ speed and pressure, then potentially an even more dangerous Arizona team after that. Nobody ever said it was easy to reach the Final Four, as Mark Few well knows.

Televisions in Sandpoint, and much of the Northwest for that matter, will be glued to the Zags and their march to the Final Four.

When the carnage of the next two rounds are over, the Bee will provide another update on the contest leaders.

Enjoy the madness, and go Zags.