Da Sean Butler

RK. TEAM Comment 1 KANSAS (0-0) Every top player from last season's Sweet 16 team returns. 2 MICHIGAN STATE (0-0) Three starters are back from last season's national runner-up. 3 TEXAS (0-0) With this much depth, the Longhorns can expect to be in the Final Four. 4 KENTUCKY (0-0) Coach Calipari is playing with the big boys now in the Bluegrass State. 5 NORTH CAROLINA (1-0) Huge losses?

West Virginia has a championship to help lessen the disappointment of not playing in the NCAA tournament. Frank Young and the Mountaineers shot past Clemson to their first NIT title in 65 years. Young made six three-point baskets and scored 24 points, and Da'Sean Butler scored 20 points to help West Virginia defeat Clemson, 78-73, in the championship game Thursday night at New York's Madison Square Garden. Young was named the tournament's most outstanding player.

Top-seeded teams No. 1 Kentucky: Coach John Calipari guided Massachusetts and Memphis to the Final Four and is now in position to match Rick Pitino's feat of doing it at three different schools. No. 2 West Virginia: With a starting lineup entirely made up of players from the New York metropolitan area, the Mountaineers won their first Big East Conference tournament title. No. 3 New Mexico: The Lobos open in San Jose, the start of a journey that could give Coach Steve Alford a triumphant return to the Hoosier state for the Final Four.

Reporting from Indianapolis -- Like at any blue-blood basketball program, Duke players know what's expected of them when they step onto campus. "Any time you come to Duke, there's so many great players that come before you, it's nice to add something on," guard Jon Scheyer said. The biggest addition the Blue Devils could contribute would be a fourth national championship. They have the opportunity to do so after breezing through the Final Four against West Virginia, 78-57, Saturday night in Lucas Oil Stadium.

There was plenty of preseason talk about Memphis losing its crown in Conference USA. Tulsa was picked as the team that could unseat the perennial winners, who looked solid enough to reclaim the title until that loss at Massachusetts. Alabama Birmingham was hardly part of the debate. Until this week. Following up on last season's 22-victory season, the Blazers are 11-1 and cracked the Associate Press top 25 for the first time since 2005-06 with impressive victories.

Everyone wants to know what went wrong with Purdue after that 14-0 start where Final Four expectations were heaped upon the Boilermakers. Coach Matt Painter said the solution to breaking out of a three-game losing slump isn't all that complicated. "We're not very tough," he said. The evidence in that is being outrebounded in five straight games, including 115-81 in the three consecutive losses to Wisconsin, Ohio State and Northwestern. The Boilermakers' once stringent defense has turned flimsy with Ohio State shooting 51% and Northwestern 45.7%, despite a season average of holding teams to 40.3%.

Chris Wright scored 27 points and No. 22 Georgetown sailed past third-ranked Syracuse, 91-84, in the quarterfinals of the Big East tournament Thursday at New York. Syracuse (28-4) is left to wonder whether it has done enough to earn a No. 1 seeding in the NCAA tournament, but also has to worry about Arinze Onuaku. He hurt his right knee and did not return to the game, and was expected to get an MRI exam when the team returned home. Austin Freeman added 18 points and Jason Clark 17 for the No. 8-seeded Hoyas (22-9)

— Syracuse lost to Butler in the West and, in the East, on Syracuse's home floor, West Virginia trailed Washington at the half. Was this the endgame for the Big East in the NCAA Tournament? As it turns out … no. West Virginia, known now as "the last Big East team standing," imposed its will in the second half and pulled away with a 69-56 regional semifinal victory at the Carrier Dome. West Virginia (30-6) advances to play the Cornell-Kentucky winner for the East Regional title on Saturday, the winner earning a spot in next week's Final Four in Indianapolis.