Unfavorable Four-cast? Maybe not this time

His impeccable research was finally complete, so Bracket Boy sunned himself by the pool at the Marriott Grand Marquis hotel in Atlanta most of yesterday. “I need to work on my tan,” our resident expert said. “I look more like a peach than an orange, and in this town, they might slap me on a billboard!”

He was supposed to have dinner with de facto Big East commissioner Tom Luicci, but he’s decided to cancel. “Luicci has been totally insufferable since the only Final Four team I got wrong was Georgetown,” BB said. “Will the Big East backslapping ever end?”

Never has BB traveled to a Final Four with higher expectations than this year, and he knows he’s not alone. There is no George Mason, no plucky underdog that might run out of gas and set up a clunker of a game. Four teams. Four heavyweights. Which means one memorable weekend, right?

“Not necessarily,” our man on the scene warned. “More often than not, the Final Four games are duds.”

Look at the recent history: Since the turn of the century, 12 of the 14 games in the national semifinals have been decided by nine or more points. The only two close games were in the same year – in 2004, when Georgia Tech slipped past Oklahoma State, 67-65, and Connecticut rallied to stun Duke, 79-78.

Otherwise? Mostly blowouts, and some all-time classic duds. Kansas drubbed Marquette 94-61 in ’03, UNC blew out Michigan State last year, “and who can forget that classic matchup between the Spartans and Wisconsin in 2000, that 53-41 yawner,” BB said, “I know I’ve tried.”

It really is difficult to pick out the “best Final Four” from the last 25 years, because virtually every one includes at least one lopsided game. Even the years with great championship games, like 1982 (Carolina over Georgetown) and 1987 (Indiana over Syracuse) had a stinker in the semifinals.

So maybe, just maybe this will be the perfect year. Maybe we are primed for two classics in Georgetown-Ohio State and UCLA-Florida, setting up a memorable Monday night for the title, too. “It has the potential,” our resident expert said, “to be an event we talk about for a long time.”

Just then, his cell phone rang. It was Luicci again. “Hey, Tom, how about we meet at the restaurant?” BB told his colleague. “Just tell the cabbie the place is on Peachtree … yeah, he’ll know the way.”

Reader Mail

More fan mail! This love letter from Mark in Millburn: “With all due respect, I don’t see how your wretched prognosticating abilities could make you think for even the slightest instant that you could be remotely qualified to do an effective Carnac routine, one of my all-time favorite skits,” he writes. “I hold in my hand the LAST envelope. Answer: John Paul II, Irish Spring, and Bracket Boy ... Name me a pope, a soap and a dope.”

Bracket Boy responds: “Mark, may you be reincarnated as Jerry Tarkanian’s towel!”

Greg Patton from Morristown is worried that Bracket Girl has become BB’s Yoko Ono. “First you allowed Bracket Girl to decorate the secret lab,” he writes. “She then made it clear that the new beard was not allowed. She followed that up by doing the unthinkable, she took over your column. Call me late Saturday night after you get back from Medieval Times and the new Sandra Bullock movie and I will be happy to recap both games for you. You should have seen this coming.”

Bracket Boy responds: “Oh, don’t you worry about me, Greg. I’m watching the games. ‘Miss Congeniality 2’ and ‘Two Weeks Notice’ came from Netflix yesterday, so I buried the DVD player in the backyard.”