The culmination of March Madness, on April 5

It's sort of fitting that the Final Four happens in April because the Madness of March usually dies down; almost without fail, the Final Four is the most boring part of the NCAA Tournament.

This year has been no exception, at least so far. Yes, it was cool seeing Butler win on Saturday and, yes, it was a close game but their 52-50 win over Michigan State on Saturday was ugly. It wasn't exciting and not even Gus Johnson could have saved it. Duke crushed West Virginia in a game that wasn't competitive after the five-minute mark.

Anyway, Duke is a 7 1/2-point favorite tonight in the national championship game. To me, Butler's biggest strength is their perimeter defense led by Ronald Nored, who no doubt will be hounding someone tonight, be it Kyle Singler, Jon Scheyer or Nolan Smith. It seems unlikely all three will be as hot as they were against West Virginia and Nored no doubt will all but take one out. His running mates Shelvin Mack and Willie Veasley may have similar success as well.

What does that mean? It means if Butler's perimeter defense is successful, there are going to be a lot of rebounds to be had on Butler's defensive end. And that means Brian Zoubek becomes the key to this game. No one gets more second-chance points than Duke and it's because Zoubek embraced being a rebounder in late January or so. And if he gets enough offensive rebounds, the Singler-Scheyer-Smith trio will eventually get those second-chance points. Butler doesn't have the bigs to matchup with Zoubek, Lance Thomas and the Plumlees on the glass and I think that will be the difference, even if Nored has another great defensive game. He's been the defensive player of the tournament if you ask me.

I think Duke wins and covers, which would make Mike Krzyzewski just the third coach all-time to win four national championships.