Believe me or not. I picked North Carolina to win the national title at the beginning of the season. I have them as the national champ in my tournament bracket. (UNC was my only surviving final four team) This up-and-coming team finally met expectation and win the title in a convincing fashion: 75-70 over the then one-loss Illinois Fighting Illini. They were undoubtedly the best team on paper. They were the rare one team (other than my Longhorns) that I could start naming their starters when they were mostly freshmen. One of the biggest story out of this is their coach Roy Williams finally getting his first National Championship. Many say the coaches are the stars in college basketball. Roy Williams is definitely one of the stars, and now becoming a star with a national championship. UNC center Sean May delivered a dominating performance, scoring 29 points and pulled 9 rebs on 10/11 shouting. He was simply unstoppable. He was no match for the guard driven Illini. This is a really good team where many players have NBA potential. I have never heard anybody comparing them to any best teams in the past. This team, the same with many past UNC teams, has many great individual talents, but never excel on a team level. Winning a national champ doesn't make me think otherwise.

This one for you, Roy

Remember people talk bad about Roy Williams when he left Kansas. You really can't blame somebody who just wanted a chance to bring his alma mater back to the glory days. It was too good of a job to give up. Matt Doherty was criticized by so many for being to emotional and never bring the team to full potential. But what he left to UNC was a great collection of talents. I believe those talents would have gone to UNC anyway for its basketball reputation. Doherty was fired at the right time when Roy was doing very well in Kansas. Roy took the job knowing something great was going to happen to this team. It was just like when Phil Jackson was taking over the Bulls with Jordan, and the Lakers with Kobe and Shaq. Roy did what he was supposed to do, that is to bring the national championship back to Chapel Hill. He could finally knock the monkey off his back and put himself on the proven legend level. This also ended his run of 37 NCAA tourney victories without a championship. Now it leaves Eddie Sutton to top that list: 36 wins but without a trophy.

Basketball: thumbs up, Fashion: thumbs down

Bruce Weber went to Illinois during the chain reaction when Roy Williams left Kansas. Bruce Weber wasn't the first choice to succeed Bill Self at Illinois. But he did almost perfectly to bring the underachieving Illinois to the Final Four and almost win it all. This is definitely a great run for them. They should be very happy with only two losses in the season, including a tight final game against the great talents of UNC. He introduced this backcourt guard play to this team with three great guards (Luther Head, Dee Brown, and Derron Williams) in which any one  can run the show any time. This game play can really do well in the current style of college basketball.

The most bizarre thing in the whole basketball game wasn't how Sean May dominated, or how much the Illinois centers suck. Rather it was the outfit of Illinois coach Bruce Weber. What was he thinking when he put on his bright orange coat? I don't mean to say wearing something of the team color is not good. In this case a orange tie will do it just right. But didn't he think that his orange color can confuse his players when he stands on the side of the court? This is not just any game for crying out loud. It's the national championship! I won't be able to figure out this one in a million years.

4.5.05 photos: AP