Best Player: Really? Is this necessary? I’ll just throw out some numbers here: 10 seed beats a 7 seed, 2 seed, 3 seed, then almost topples a 1 seed led by one guy. He scored 40, 33, 35, and 25 points respectively. Stephen Curry single-handedly gave his team the proverbial Cinderella slipper while giving every college basketball fan someone to root for. He also gave Gus Johnson reason to scream, something we had been impatiently waiting for.

Worst Coach: Coach K. Sure, Duke was probably considered the weakest 2 seed, but c’mon Coach K—you have the most tournament wins! You beat North Carolina, granted, without Ty Lawson, during the season. You had one of the best freshmen in the country in Kyle Singler, a great point guard in Greg Paulus, and a senior leader in DeMarcus Nelson. Guess that just wasn’t enough as your team almost lost to BELMONT, and then they forgot how to make a basket in the 2nd half en route to an early exit at the hands of West Virginia.

Best Freshman: This season and tournament have been dominated by freshmen. Michael Beasley, Kevin Love, OJ Mayo, Eric Gordon, and Jarryd Bayless will all be first round NBA draft picks, if not lottery selections. But the best freshman in the tournament whose stock is rising is Derrick Rose. Going into the championship game, Rose is averaging above 21 points a game in the tournament. He had 25 points, 9 rebounds, and was 11-12 from the charity stripe (Ok John Calipari, you told us so).

Worst use of 7’2 frame: Georgetown’s Roy Hibbert. Hibbert had 6 points and 5 fouls in the Hoyas’ second round upset loss to Davidson. Just for some perspective, the Wildcats’ tallest player stands 6’9, but most of the game Hibbert was guarded by a 6’8 forward, yet he only managed 6 points before fouling out. Can anyone say draft stock just went down?

Best Game: Marquette vs. Stanford, round 2. I know there were some great first round finishes and upsets, but this was the best game considering the teams involved. Stanford won 82-81 in overtime on this Brook Lopez shot. Marquette, despite a monstrous height advantage, got 30 points from Jerel McNeal and had a couple chances to put the game away, but the Disney-loving Lopez twins were too much.

Worst luck: Gonna have to go with Gus Johnson. Gus has become a cult icon over the past few years thanks to calls like this in the NCAA Tournament. CBS did the smart thing by putting Gus on the call through the second weekend, and he even had games such as Pittsburgh/Michigan St. and Notre Dame/Washington St. that people thought would be Gus Johnson-scream-inducing games. Instead, here are the margins of victory in every game Gus called: 11, 19, 18, 31, 11, 20, 17, and 15. Luckily, his tournament ended with a 2 point victory for Kansas over Davidson, but wouldn’t you have just loved to have Gus Johnson on the call for those first round upsets in Tampa?

Best player you’ve never heard of: Western Kentucky point guard Tyrone Brazleton. The senior guard from Chicago looked like the fastest guy in the entire tournament. He dropped 33 in the Hilltoppers’ upset win over Drake. He had 15 points and 5 assists in the 2nd round win over San Diego, and then concluded his tourney with a 31 point output against the 1 seeded UCLA Bruins.

Worst idea: The bright minds in Detroit at Ford Field decided to put the basketball court at the 50 yard-line to increase ticket revenue and attempt to fit 72,000 in the dome. They did this to prove to the NCAA they are going to be a worthy host to the Final Four in 2009. However, this was a horrible idea for the game of college basketball. Trust me, I was there. I’ve never seen a weirder atmosphere at a basketball game. Because the dome is so big, there wasn’t a crowd effect. Everyone was pretty far from the elevated court that had ushers around it to keep players from falling off if they went for a loose ball. I sat in the risers that were built to, again, increase attendance. I ended up pretty close to the court by moving down 25 rows, but the view was still very strange. Even when Stephen Curry put Davidson on his back in the first game and everyone that wasn’t from Wisconsin was cheering, it didn’t seem loud. I’m glad the NCAA and Ford Field raked in the dough, but the pageantry that makes college basketball what it is was completely lost in the dome.

Best Shot: There are two winners here, one actually happened, one was just in practice. Senior Ty Rogers, who only averaged 6.4 points on the year, sent Western Kentucky into the second round and gave us our first ‘shining moment’ with this shot.

Kevin Love, in practice for the Final 4, showed his ridiculous range. While this wasn’t in a game, it’s worth putting in this category for obvious reasons.