With the Final Four on tap, there are just three games left in what will hopefully become an annual Husky Men's Basketball Blog NCAA Tourney contest (you can check it out here).

I see Bomberboy is ahead and has UCLA beating North Carolina in the final (the same as my bracket, so I guess there's no way I can catch up.)

Pretty sure it's Bomberboy who I met at the Mariner game the other day so not sure if I want to give him the prize I had considered awarding to the winner (joke hopefully gotten) --- a basketball autographed by as many as the Husky players and coaches who I could get to do it in the next week or so (I figured that would be an especially fitting award should a Cougar or Zag fan win it).

I quickly glanced at the top six entries and noticed all picked each of the Final Four teams correctly, all of whom are No. 1 seeds. That might seem like the easy way out, but until this year, all four No. 1 seeds had never made it so it was still a little of a risk (I almost did it but picked Texas to beat Memphis, leaving me in a still-respectable-considering-my-history-in-these-things 15th).

I'm thinking we might not have to wait long to see all four No. 1 seeds get to the Final Four again, however. Two of the Final Four are led by one-and-done players (Memphis and UCLA) who likely wouldn't be in school if not for the new NBA rule mandating they have to attend college for at least one season.

The winners of that rule appear to be the big-name schools who can best attract big-time recruits. And the recruits who go into college thinking (hoping?) they are only going to be in college one year will always be more likely to pick the big-name schools. They're going to want a sure thing, to make the biggest splash as quickly as they can.

The 2006 NCAA Tournament, when George Mason got to the Final Four and a few other off-the-beaten-path schools made deep runs was deemed by many as a breakthrough for the mid-majors, the schools who get the lower-tier recruits and could use experience and teamwork to beat more talented teams.

Instead, it might have simply been a last stand as the traditional powers have just gotten more powerful, something this year's Final Four appears to prove.