NBA star Kevin Durant poses for photos with the victorious Louisville women (via YouTube)

In the final game of Brittney Griner's illustrious Baylor career, Louisville accomplished something no other team has when facing the greatest player in women's college hoops history.

The Cardinals made Griner a non-factor.

Brittney Griner and Odyssey Sims (AP)

Raining down threes from the perimeter at a record clip and double- and triple-teaming Griner in the paint whenever she touched the ball, Louisville effectively neutralized the 6-foot-8 center. Guard Odyssey Sims spearheaded a furious Baylor rally from a 19-point deficit with less than 12 minutes to play, but Louisville guard Monique Reid hit two free throws with 2.6 seconds left to lift the fifth-seeded Cardinals to a stunning 82-81 victory in the Sweet 16.

Louisville's upset extinguishes Baylor's hopes of a repeat national championship and ends Griner's college career three games sooner than anyone could have expected. She'll likely leave Baylor a three-time first-team All-American, a two-time national player of the year and the second-leading scorer in women's college hoops history, but the lone blight on an otherwise unparalleled career is she'll only have one national championship.

[Related: Inspired Louisville men punch Final Four ticket over Duke]

It's been well known for years that the formula to minimize the Griner effect on a game was to hit shots from the perimeter and not bother challenging her in the paint, but no team has done it as effectively as Louisville. The Cardinals, who entered play Sunday hitting just 31 percent of their 3-pointers, sank 16 of 25 from behind the arc, seven from Antonita Slaughter and five from Shoni Schimmel.

At a timeout midway through the second half, an ESPN sideline reporter asked Baylor coach Kim Mulkey what she intended to change defensively to hinder Louisville's torrid shooting.

"They're unconscious," an exasperated Mulkey replied. "I'm kind of scratching my head what to do."

A frenetic, unpredictable NCAA tournament has yielded a Final Four that seems to have something for every taste.

Louisville and Wichita State will meet in one national semifinal, a matchup pitting the pre-tournament favorite against a underdog whose roster of ex-walk-ons and overlooked recruits stormed through the West Region the past two weeks. The other semifinal will pit Syracuse and Michigan, two No. 4 seeds who spent much of the season in the top 10 but had to rebound from late-season fades to reach the Final Four.

That the Final Four only features one team seeded better than No. 4 is no surprise considering the topsy-turvy nature of this year's college basketball regular season. Not only did no team emerge as a dominant powerhouse in the mold of last year's Kentucky team or 2009 North Carolina, the nation's top teams traded the No. 1 ranking week-by-week as though it was a hot potato.

[Related: Injured Kevin Ware inspires Louisville in Final Four bid]

Of the remaining teams in the field, however, Louisville has earned the title of favorite. The Cardinals have torn through their four NCAA tournament opponents by an average of nearly 22 points per game and have won 17 of 18 games overall, the only loss coming in five overtimes against Notre Dame back in mid-February.

Don't expect Wichita State to be intimidated though. The Shockers have already become only the fifth team seeded ninth or higher to make a Final Four, parlaying strong defense, fierce rebounding and unusually torrid outside shooting into victories over the likes of Pittsburgh, Gonzaga and Ohio State.

Once top-seeded Louisville was on the verge of finishing off Duke on Sunday afternoon to clinch its second Final Four bid in the past two seasons, forward Chane Behanan stripped off his own jersey and donned the No. 5 of teammate Kevin Ware.

It was a fitting gesture for the player who inspired the Cardinals not to let their championship dreams go to waste on his behalf.

As he was lying in front of the Louisville bench in the first half with his right leg broken so badly that the bone was protruding from the skin, Ware called his teammates over and told them not to worry about him and to go win the game. The top-seeded Cardinals did just as he asked, breaking open a three-point game at halftime and pulling away from second-seeded Duke for an 85-63 rout.

[Slideshow: Players, coaches react to Kevin Ware's gruesome injury]

Ware's injury was on the minds of his teammates throughout their game-changing 24-8 blitz midway through the second half. Since Ware is an Atlanta native and that is the host city for the Final Four, coach Rick Pitino said Louisville players and coaches reminded one-another during every timeout that the goal was to bring Ware home.

"We won this for him," Pitino told CBS sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson. "We're all choked up with emotion for him. We wanted to get back to Atlanta."

It was two of Louisville's other guards who were most responsible for the Cardinals turning a 35-32 halftime lead into a rout. Seniors Russ Smith and Peyton Siva torched Duke off the dribble via the pick and roll the entire game, beating their defenders easily and then drawing fouls on late-arriving Duke big men around the rim.

Louisville players react after Kevin Ware's injury (Getty Images)

As Kevin Ware lay in front of the Louisville bench screaming in anguish after breaking his leg in gruesome fashion during Sunday's game against Duke, one glance at the reaction of his teammates demonstrated how close the Cardinals are.

The four other Louisville players on the court crumpled to the ground and hid their tear-stained eyes in their hands or jerseys to keep from looking at Ware. Players on the Cardinals bench all recoiled in horror and several reportedly even appeared to vomit. And as medical staffers loaded Ware onto a stretcher and prepared to transport him to an Indianapolis hospital, even Louisville coach Rick Pitino had to wipe away tears.

Before Ware left the floor, he called his teammates over to him. CBS sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson said he told the rest of the Louisville players, "Don't worry about me. I'll be OK. You guys go win this thing."

[Slideshow: Players, coaches react to Kevin Ware's gruesome injury]

Ware sustained the injury trying to defend a Tyler Thornton 3-pointer with 6:33 left in the first half Sunday's final Elite Eight game and Louisville leading Duke 21-20. CBS showed the replay twice when it happened, but the network made the appropriate decision not to air a close-up shot or to air it again during its halftime show.

We've included a video of the injury at the bottom of the post for those who want to see it, but frankly I recommend not scrolling down that far. It was horrific enough that one of the few athletes who has suffered a similar injury chose to lend his condolences on Twitter as Ware was being taken off the floor and Louisville fans in the stands were chanting his name.

"Watching Duke/ Louisville my heart goes out to Kevin Ware," tweeted ex-Washington Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann.

The timing of the injury could not be worse for Louisville on multiple levels.

[Also: Sports world reacts to Ware's injury]

Ryan Harrow (Getty Images)Unlike most transfers in which one side wins and one side loses, Ryan Harrow's decision to leave Kentucky appears to be mutually beneficial.

Harrow will get a fresh start, plenty of playing time and the opportunity to be closer to his Atlanta home as a result of his decision to transfer to Sun Belt Conference-bound Georgia State. And Kentucky will avoid the potential chemistry issues that could have arisen from Harrow losing his starting point guard position to incoming freshmen Andrew or Aaron Harrison.

Since Harrow already sat out the entire 2011-12 season after transferring from NC State to Kentucky, he would only have one year of eligibility remaining if he also has to sit out the 2013-14 season at Georgia State. He will petition the NCAA for a waiver because part of the motivation for his decision to attend Georgia State is to be closer to his father, who suffered a stroke last year.

"I really need to be home with him to be closer to him to make sure he’s taken care of," Harrow told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "My dad is really into basketball. He wants to be at games but he can’t travel. With me being here I can go and check on him and make sure he’s OK."

If Harrow is able to attain that waiver – no sure bet considering playing time also probably played a role in his decision – the third party that stands to benefit is Georgia State. Even though Harrow was unable to play at the level of John Calipari's previous point guards at Kentucky and Memphis, the former five-star recruit still would fill a need for a Panthers team that is thin at point guard.

Harrow averaged 9.9 points and 2.8 assists per game at Kentucky, stats similar to those he produced as a freshman at NC State during the 2010-11 season. His outside shot and his perimeter defense have room for improvement, but his quickness and ability to finish at the rim would be assets for a Georgia State team that went 15-16 in its final CAA season but brings back its three leading scorers.

LOS ANGELES — They were overlooked before the season because last year's five leading scorers graduated. They were dwarfed in their own league by highly touted Creighton. And they were overshadowed during their NCAA tournament run because another Cinderella story was even more unfathomable than their own.

Only now that they've vanquished the best the West Region had to offer can the Wichita State Shockers not be ignored any longer.

Despite temporarily losing two of their best players to second-half injuries and allowing a determined Ohio State team to cut a 20-point deficit to three in the final minutes, Wichita State refused to fold and escaped with for a 70-66 victory. The ninth-seeded Shockers advance to the school's first Final Four since 1965, where they'll again be an underdog against either Duke or Louisville next Saturday.

[Related: Big Ten in danger of being shut out of Final Four]

"We've been called the underdogs all year and nobody believed we could get to this point," Wichita State junior Nick Wiggins said. "It's just an unbelievable feeling to actually prove everyone wrong, make it to the Final Four and have this success."

Wichita State becomes only the fifth team seeded ninth or higher to make the Final Four, joining Penn (No. 9 in 1979), LSU (No. 11 in 1986), George Mason (No. 11 in 2006) and Virginia Commonwealth (No. 11 in 2011). The Shockers didn't have an easy path either, knocking out Big East power Pittsburgh, No. 1 seed Gonzaga and streaking upstart La Salle just to advance to the Elite Eight.

Toppling Ohio State was especially impressive simply because the surging Buckeyes were playing their best basketball in March. Buoyed by an elite defense and the emergence of complementary scorers who have taken the pressure off Deshaun Thomas, they had won 11 in a row entering Saturday's game to advance within one game of a second straight Final Four.

The most remarkable part of Wichita State's run was the Shockers did it with ex-walk-ons, junior college transfers and overlooked prospects that a powerhouse like Ohio State wouldn't even dream of recruiting.

Steve Alford (Getty Images)

The 10-year contract extension Steve Alford signed earlier this month apparently wasn't worth the paper on which it was printed.

UCLA announced Saturday it has hired Alford as its next coach, surprising news since the New Mexico coach hadn't been one of the names commonly linked to the Bruins' search in the wake of Ben Howland's firing last weekend.

The initial criticism of the hire has been that UCLA fired a coach who went to three Final Fours from 2006 to 2008 in favor of one who hasn't been to a Sweet 16 this century. It's an easy joke to make, but it ignores the transfers, chaos and mediocrity of the past five years that ultimately cost Howland his job.

[More: USC targeting Florida Gulf Coast coach Andy Enfield]

The better question is whether Alford was the best choice UCLA could make as Howland's replacement. Here's a look at some of the pros and cons to his hire:

Pro: Once Shaka Smart and Brad Stevens expressed their disinterest in coming to UCLA, Alford was a very respectable second-tier choice. He has more West Coast recruiting ties than Gregg Marshall, he has enjoyed more recent success than Lorenzo Romar, his teams are more consistent and disciplined than Mark Gottfried's and he is not as big a risk as a potential NBA hire. In six seasons at New Mexico, Alford has instilled discipline and defense, winning at least a share of the Mountain West title four times. The ex-Indiana star also led Southwest Missouri State to the Sweet 16 in 1999 and made the NCAA tournament three times during an up-and-down eight-year tenure at Iowa.

Whether it's Arizona in 1997, Rhode Island in 1998 or Northern Iowa in 2010, Kansas has a long history of stunning losses as a No. 1 seed.

None of those were any more painful, however, than the near-certain win the Jayhawks let slip through their fingers Friday night.

Comfortably ahead of fourth-seeded Michigan by 10 points with the ball and only two and a half minutes remaining in regulation, Kansas needed only to run clock, avoid turnovers and sink its free throws to advance to the Elite Eight. Instead the Jayhawks frittered away that lead in a hail of turnovers and blown defensive assignments, finally giving Michigan a chance to tie on its final possession when Elijah Johnson missed the front end of a one-and-one to keep the Wolverines' deficit at three.

[Related: Kansas player's shot to groin doesn't look like accident]

To the surprise of no one, Michigan put the ball in the hands of Trey Burke, the favorite to win national player of the year. Burke curled around a Mitch McGary screen and found just enough daylight to bury the game-tying 25 footer with five seconds left, enabling Michigan to force overtime and eke out an improbable 87-85 win.

Despite a scoreless first half, Burke finished with 23 points and 10 assists and his game-tying 3-pointer wasn't his only big buckets of the night. He had eight points during Michigan's late comeback alone and scored the first five in overtime for the Wolverines on a 3-pointer and a jump shot.

Burke's heroics send the Wolverines to the Elite Eight for the first time since 1994, an outcome few anticipated given the way they finished the regular season. They were a trendy upset pick in both their opening-weekend games after dropping five of 10 to close the regular season including a Big Ten quarterfinal loss to Wisconsin.