There were no first-round picks in Virginia for the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament, and the glow of good NCAA tournament performances kept possible second-round choices (such as Ohio State's Ron Lewis) away for the weekend. Still, for the discriminating eye, Portsmouth is a stop on the pre-NBA draft tour where players can work themselves into draft consideration and European contracts.

The biggest surprise of the PIT had to be Wright State's 5-foot-11 guard Dashaun Wood, a late invitee to Portsmouth who turned out to be the tournament MVP. Scouts loved his quickness and playmaking ability, which he needed to show after shouldering so much of a scoring burden in lifting his college team to an improbable NCAA tournament bid.

Wood is assured an invitation to the NBA's pre-draft camp on June 4-8 in Orlando, where as one Eastern Conference scout said, "It will be good to watch him play against some better competition."

Jamaal Tatum of Southern Illinois, a 6-2 guard, made the

ATLANTA – No one had to tell the Florida Gators when and where to go because muscle memory brought them back to the black stage sitting in the middle of the Georgia Dome. Corey Brewer held onto Joakim Noah, and Noah held onto Jack Berry, and that goofy, hokey network television video and song, "One Shining Moment," started to flicker on the video board high above the floor.

"The ball is tipped," Noah started singing, and now, these Gators were mouthing the words with him in their own goofy, hokey moment. Against all odds, the core of the national champions had come back to secure a spot as one of college basketball's forever teams. They had pounded the Ohio State Buckeyes, 84-75, and here they sat, one by one, holding onto this season, this team, a little longer.

"Almost makes you want to cry," Brewer said of that sappy song. "That's why you love college basketball."

For two seasons, these kids dared to make a coach's sport about the players again. They gave everyone a standard, a

Yahoo! Sports: Title game analysis

ATLANTA – Beneath the brawn and the beard, Greg Oden, the hulking freshman of the Ohio State Buckeyes, had a little secret: He was terrified of a teammate two years older, and 10 inches and 70 pounds lighter. Jamar Butler barely needed to say "Boo," and he would've toppled Oden over.

"Butler had all these tattoos, I was so scared of him," he confessed Sunday.

Now, the smile started to creep across his lips, and that big laugh tumbled out of him. He doesn't need to tell you he's the goliath, the impenetrable force that's taken over the room. He's too cool, too confident. He can laugh at himself. He's this way at Ohio State at 19 years old, just like he would've been in the NBA this year.

As it turns out, Oden went the distance in his college basketball season with the Buckeyes, allowing America to see him until the final night of the season. It would've been wonderful for the world to get to see Oden in this tournament, but he's been on the bench with

Final Four blog | More exclusive tourney analysis

ATLANTA – Joakim Noah was running in the corridor – for Monday night, for history – screaming, "I never lie to you baby! … I never lie." He told Al Horford that they would get back here together, that they would make history this season, and so Horford let out a laugh and nodded before they disappeared into the locker room.

Outside, you still could hear screams of joy late Saturday night at the Georgia Dome. All together, they were the most unburdened of souls, unaffected by the pressure of repeating as national champions, untouched by the specter of Billy Donovan, their coach, running off to the University of Kentucky at season's end.

Once again, Florida destroyed UCLA at the Final Four. This time it was 76-66, and truth be told, the scoreboard didn't do justice to the brevity of the beatdown on the Bruins. Across the past year, the Gators had stayed together against improbable odds to chase one more championship, chase back-to-backs

Final Four blog | More exclusive tourney analysis

ATLANTA – Here at the Final Four, one of the great reformers of the National Collegiate Athletic Association sounded troubled with the rapid rise of coaching salaries. He thinks it's excessive, out of line, and wonders when the leaders of higher education will restore order.

"It's mind-boggling," Jerry Tarkanian said Friday afternoon. "How in the hell are the presidents approving that?"

Down the hall at the Hilton Hotel, the coaches in the lobby are buzzing about Billy Donovan and the Kentucky job. Three and a half million dollars a season, maybe four, is what Kentucky's boosters are willing to pay for Donovan. Kentucky is the Alabama football of college basketball, and they're waiting to sign a blank check to get their Nick Saban. As soon as Donovan gets his money to stay at Florida, or leave, there will be a long line of coaches from Durham, N.C., to Chapel Hill, from Memphis to Louisville to Westwood, demanding they get bigger raises

The panic percolating within his voice made his stutter sound like a runaway train. He should've been at his office preparing for Game 2 of the Continental Basketball Association finals, but he was yelling into his cell phone now, trying to spare himself the indignity of fading into the nevermore of the abyss.

Welcome to the last stand of Micheal Ray Richardson.

"There's not a hateful bone in my body!" the coach of the Albany Patroons pleaded from upstate New York on Wednesday afternoon, just after his franchise suspended him for the rest of the CBA championship series. "People who know me know this is false. He took it out of context. … Oh man, why am I talking to you?

"Why am I talking to you guys again?"

Maybe it was a little late to stop talking. That's always been Richardson's problem. He's never known when to stop, when his excesses and impulses would send him on a self-destructive spiral. On Tuesday night, moments before the start of the CBA finals against the Yakima Sun Kings

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – They were going to overtime now, and those rattled, retreating North Carolina Tar Heels were slinking to the sideline when John Thompson III marched into his huddle. Those eyes were staring back at him, trying to hear him over the deafening din, and slowly, surely, a smile crawled across his lips.

"This is fun!" Thompson III blurted, and he grabbed his clipboard and went back to work on a Final Four berth that mere minutes earlier Sunday looked like a lost cause. His Hoyas never should have had such a shot Sunday to reach Atlanta, should've been down and out, but somehow they kept coming and coming and inspired an epic Carolina collapse at the Continental Airlines Arena.

Across the final, frantic minutes, Thompson III dabbed his baby bald head with the white towel that his old man used to toss over his shoulder, forever staying cool in this frantic, fabulous comeback victory. Ultimately, the Tar Heels stiffened in the final 15 minutes of regulation and overtime

Through the sandbox spats with Shaquille O'Neal and criminal charges in Colorado, through the flailing arms and suspensions, Kobe Bryant keeps the innate gift that turns everyone back to the unassailable truth of his mystique: Salvation is forever in his shot.

Whatever grief he brings on himself, whatever trouble comes his way, Bryant finds his forgiveness in shooting the basketball. He keeps shooting, keeps scoring – four consecutive 50-point games – and Bryant bullies back his detractors, his demons, basket after basket. Whatever you want to say about him, he demands this to be included: Best player on the planet.

"Do you remember there was a suspension about two weeks ago?" Phil Jackson asked Friday night in New Orleans. "I think this has motivated him."

Jackson is the grand wizard master of all mind games, and it's easy to see him marveling over the one that Bryant is playing with himself and with everyone.

Fifty points on the Hornets on Friday night seemed so improbable, what with