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    Jeff Eisenberg

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    Jeff Eisenberg is a College Basketball blogger for Yahoo! Sports.

    • The six most outrageous styles from the NCAA tournament

      THE TWO-TONED MOUTHPIECE

      A two-toned blue and white mouthpiece is already a daring look, but Saint Mary's guard Matthew Dellavedova made it so much worse because he could not seem to keep it inside his mouth.

      Each time TV cameras showed a closeup of Dellavedova during the Gaels' surprising Sweet 16 run, the mouthpiece was so conspicuous that CBS analyst Bill Raftery couldn't resist chiming in.

      Said Raftery with a wry chuckle, "That's a man who has a lot of confidence."

      FEAR THE BEARD

      When Kansas State guard Jacob Pullen began growing a beard last August, he never envisioned it would quickly become a cherished symbol of the Wildcats' basketball revival.

      Students wore T-shirts bearing the slogan "Fear the Beard" and school officials handed out fake beards to fans when the Wildcats hosted Texas in January.

      Pullen wanted to shave the beard several times during the season, but his teammates wouldn't let him out of fear of messing up their good mojo.

      BIG CUZ'S URKEL GLASSES

      My favorite

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    • A gift idea for Kentucky fans: the John Wall windshield wiper

      If there's any doubt why Kentucky basketball fans have the reputation for being some of the most passionate in all of sports, one glance at this video should provide all the persuasion you need.

      Kentucky resident Andrew Sommer has mounted a fiberglass replica of John Wall's arm dunking a ball on the back windshield wiper of his van in hopes of drawing attention to the small business he runs making hand-painted fiberglass signs and decorations. Sommer said he drew plenty of honks and stares as he drove through Lexington last week with the wiper blade going back and forth, the windows down and the "John Wall Song" blaring from his speakers.

      "We just wanted to deck our car out to advertise our company and support UK," Sommer said. "We wanted to draw attention to ourselves, and it worked pretty well. We've had a lot of people recording video of it."

      Whether it's a fiberglass axe chopping a hand at Halloween time or some other Holiday-themed novelty decoration, Sommer always puts an

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    • Final Four preview: Michigan State will test Butler's defense

      The Dagger previews both of the Final Four matchups. Here's our look at Butler-Michigan State:

      No. 5 Butler (30-4) vs. No. 5 Michigan State (28-8)

      Saturday, 6:07 p.m. EDT, Lucas Oil Stadium (Indianapolis)

      How they got here:

      Butler: d. No. 12 UTEP, 77-59; d. No. 13 Murray State 54-52, d. No. 1 Syracuse 63-59, d. No. 2 Kansas State 63-56

      Michigan State: d. No. 12 New Mexico State, 70-67; d. No. 4 Maryland, 85-83, d. No. 9 Northern Iowa, 59-52, d. No. 6 Tennessee, 70-69

      Last Final Four appearances:

      Butler: N/A

      Michigan State: 2009 (Lost to North Carolina in national title game)

      Match-up to watch: Michigan State G Durrell Summers vs. Butler G Shelvin Mack

      There was absolutely no sign Durrell Summers would emerge as Michigan State's top scoring guard in the NCAA tournament entering play two weeks ago. The 6-foot-4 shooting guard scored in double figures just once in his final eight regular season games, but he's averaged 22.5 points in the tournament, helping fill the scoring void left by

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    • Who could have predicted this Final Four three weeks ago?

      March Madness lived up to its nickname this spring, delivering an upset-filled first two weeks and a Final Four hardly any of us could have predicted when we were filling out our brackets.

      Hometown favorite Butler and Big Ten power Michigan State will meet in one national semifinal next Saturday in Indianapolis, and surging West Virginia will square off with lone remaining No. 1 seed Duke in the other.

      If the Final Four will miss the star power and instant name recognition of ousted No. 1 seeds Kansas, Syracuse and Kentucky, at least this field is not lacking for compelling story lines.

      Fifth-seeded Butler upended Syracuse and second-seeded Kansas State to earn its first trip to the Final Four and the opportunity to play a mere five miles from its campus.

      Fellow No. 5 seed Michigan State overcame year-long chemistry issues and a season-ending injury to star Kalin Lucas in the second round to make the most improbable of coach Tom Izzo's six Final Four runs.

      West Virginia also survived

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    • Video: Was the late foul on Tennessee's Prince a good call?

      As Tennessee's coaches attempted to concoct a play to save the Vols' season during the final timeout of Sunday's Midwest Regional Final, forward J.P. Prince's mind was still on the previous sequence.

      He approached media members seated courtside to ask if referees made a good call when they whistled him for a foul with 1.8 seconds to go, sending Michigan State's Raymar Morgan to the foul line for the game-winning free throws.

      When Tennessee's Scotty Hopson missed the potential go-ahead free throw with 12 seconds left in a tie game, the Vols were inexplicably slow to get back on defense and Prince had to attempt to block Morgan's game-winning layup. Slow-motion TV replays show that Prince avoided body contact and got mostly ball with his elbow, though Tennessee big man Brian Williams may have made contact with Morgan's body from behind.

      "For it to end like that with one second, that's just one of the most painful things," Prince said after Michigan State's 70-69 victory. "I saw Raymar

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    • WVU forward: Kentucky win was 'national championship game'

      West Virginia doesn't even know whether its Final Four opponent will be Duke or Baylor yet, but the Mountaineers have already managed to provide some juicy bulletin board material.

      Apparently caught up in the emotion of Saturday's admittedly impressive Elite Eight victory over top-seeded Kentucky, forward Wellington Smith was quick to label West Virginia as favorites to cut down the nets in Indianapolis.

      "There was always Kentucky looming," he said. "Now that we've played Kentucky, that basically was the national championship game. We have a chance at this, we could win going away."

      Although Bob Huggins' eyes probably bulged out of his sockets when he read that quote, there is some merit to Smith's bravado. Now that the three pre-tournament favorites have been eliminated along with every No. 1 and 2 seed besides West Virginia and Duke, why shouldn't the Mountaineers come to Indianapolis with some confidence?

      In fact, a West Virginia team whose only obvious weakness against Washington

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    • Video: Butler coach, walk-on share a victory chest bump

      If Brad Stevens is trying to quell the talk that he looks young enough to be a college student, the 33-year-old Butler coach's choice of post-game celebrations on Saturday afternoon probably didn't help.

      Still clad in his dark suit, blue tie and wingtip shoes after his team's victory over Kansas State in the West Regional finals, Stevens caught the attention of walk-on forward Emerson Kampen at mid-court and delivered a flying chest bump.

      According to USA Today, the chest bump between Stevens and and Kampen is fast becoming a NCAA tournament tradition for Butler. Stevens saw Kampen chest bump Shelvin Mack and Gordon Hayward during lineup introductions, so he decided to join in after Butler's second-round victory over Murray State.

      "Coach just came into the locker room after the game and started pointing at me," Kampen said. "So he jumped up and we did it. We did it again after the Syracuse game."

      As the final seconds ticked off the clock on Saturday, Stevens walked to the end of his

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    • Three-point shooting fuels West Virginia, fells Kentucky

      Kentucky's erratic 3-point shooting has been its primary weakness all season, so it was no surprise to see a cold spell from behind the arc end the top-seeded Wildcats' NCAA tournament run.

      A far bigger shock, however, was that West Virginia's 73-66 upset victory was also fueled by torrid long-range shooting of its own.

      Ranked 198th in the nation in 3-point shooting entering Saturday's East Regional Final, the second-seeded Mountaineers advanced to the Final Four for the first time since 1959 thanks to sizzling 10-of-23 shooting from behind the arc. They missed all 16 of their two-point attempts in the first half, yet somehow sank 8 of 15 from 3-point range, four alone coming in one five-minute stretch from forward Da'Sean Butler.

      "You have to give them credit," Kentucky coach John Calipari said. "The last five games they had shot 25 percent from the three. When we walked in at halftime, I said, 'They don't have a basket, guys. We have to guard [Kevin] Jones and we have to guard

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    • Homecoming Kings: Butler will return to Indy for the Final Four

      A quick glance at Mapquest shows that a five-mile drive down Capitol Avenue is all that separates Butler's campus from downtown Indianapolis.

      Needless to say, the Bulldogs' road to an improbable hometown Final Four was a bit longer and more arduous than that.

      Long regarded as the plucky underdog that plays in the same fieldhouse where the final scene from "Hoosiers" was shot, Butler has strived for years to shed that label and prove it belongs among the sport's heavweights. In the ultimate feel-good story of an NCAA tournament jam-packed with them so far, the Bulldogs did just that in Saturday's West Regional Final, pulling off a 63-56 win over Kansas State that guarantees the Final Four will have a hometown feel.

      "I think this is what we expected at the beginning of the season," point guard Ronald Nored told reporters after the game. "We're not here to just go back to Indy and go to the Final Four and, you know, celebrate that way. We want to win the whole thing. But this is

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    • Butler's Gordon Hayward, aka G-Time, is 'Too Big, Yo'

      Gordon Hayward was already the only NBA prospect more accomplished in tennis than basketball as a kid. Now the multi-talented Butler star may also be the only one dabbling in rap.

      Adopting the hip-hop alias "G-Time," Hayward joined some buddies during spring break and laid down the third verse in "Too Big, Yo," a rap song they put up on Facebook earlier this month. He removed the video from YouTube after the outside world discovered it, but thanks to Kyle Whelliston at The Mid-Majority the audio is still available so we can all relive its greatness in advance of Butler's first Elite Eight game Saturday against Kansas State. (Hayward's verse starts at 1:44.)

      Hayward isn't exactly a threat to Tupac, Nas or Eminem as rap's best lyricist, his words have at least proven to be somewhat prophetic. A sampling:

      But it's not about me, it's about the team;

      Going to the tourney with a full head of steam;

      'Chip's real close, it's at our back door;

      Get a few dubs, we'll be in the Final Four;

      Not

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