NCAA Tournament Big Ten

In a sea of green, Michigan State flat out drowned.

DETROIT -- They celebrated together, arm in arm, bouncing and hugging and laughing and ultimately crying as the confetti buried them. It isn't the best time for traditional brand names in America, with even the surest things reduced to chilling vulnerability in a volatile, wacky world. But the North Carolina basketball name, a constant for ages in this country, remains safe and secure.

There's no real secret as to what did in Michigan State in the NCAA championship game. Yes, there was the superior talent on North Carolina. The Tar Heels shot really effectively in the first half. North Carolina could actually make free throws. The issue for Michigan State, though, was their inability to hold onto the ball.

The Spartans turned the ball over 21 times in the game. The poor ball-handling made it easier for North Carolina to go on runs big runs and stopped Michigan State attempts to come back cold.

This certainly wasn't the same Michigan State team we watched the past two weekends. But it was the same North Carolina team we all thought, back in November, was the best team in the country by a mile.

If ever a national championship game felt like a coronation, it was 2009.

There were reasons, over the past three months, to doubt these Tar Heels. There was Ty Lawson's bum toe. There was that weird and inexplicable loss to Boston College. There were memories of the way they went out, too soon, in the tournament the past two years. The 2007 collapse against Georgetown. The 2008 pasting by Kansas.

This is it. The last game of the 2008-09 basketball season. Whether you're rooting for Michigan State or North Carolina join is for a live chat at 9 PM ET and stick with us through the night. We'll be talking about the game, how the teams got here, the Arizona and Memphis quests to find someone to take their job, and anything else that comes to mind.

In life, you may never get a second chance to make a first impression.

But if you bomb it as badly as Michigan State did in its 98-63 loss to North Carolina in December that was godawful embarrassing even by the standards of a stadium that hosts the Lions, you'll get months, if not a lifetime, to explain exactly what went wrong.

And if you're the Spartans, you get a second chance to make it right.

At least after you explain. And explain. And explain.

John Wooden is, without question, one of the greatest college basketball coaches to ever set foot on the hardwood. A (seriously) spry 96 years old, Coach Wooden was kind of enough to take some time out of his Championship Monday to speak with FanHouse. From his upcoming Gatorade commercial (it debuts tonight, you can get a sneak preview of it here), to how he feels about the money and attention that college coaches receive, to who he has pegged to win Monday night's big game, Coach Wooden had plenty to say. Hit the jump to read the full interview.

Here on FanHouse, I've discussed the maligned Big Ten ad nauseum. For some reason, people just love to hate the power conference of the midwest. Droves of fans and media alike cried foul when the conference received seven total bids to the NCAA tournament -- conveniently ignoring the fact that three of the teams were given double-digit seeds.

After two rounds, I believe the conference was vindicated to an extent. Michigan and Wisconsin advanced, and Purdue went to the Sweet 16. Still, a deep run was probably needed by someone to quiet the critics. Enter Michigan State, participants in Monday night's national championship game.

This is only a game.

At least, in the sense that anything with the population of Youngstown, Ohio sitting courtside can be just a game. In the sense that something with a television deal that could bail out the auto industry, the banks and the WNBA in one fell swoop can be just a game.

It's no great moral play in three acts with hugs at the end. North Carolina won't hit the warmup lines in capes and monocle, laugh maniacally and lash poor Lupe Izzo to a railroad track. And that block S in Michigan State's logo stands for nothing more than State, not Supermen.

DETROIT -- It's the phoniness of it all that usually is so annoying.

Teams rally around their trumped-up idea that they don't get respect.

They live for respect. They've got to have their respect.