Final Four turns into big disappointment in Indy

	The Florida Gators celebrate at center court after beating UCLA to win the national title. Bob Rosato/SI
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INDIANAPOLIS -- On this, the day after Florida's title-game rout of UCLA, I woke up with a bitter taste in my mouth.

Was it from those 3 a.m. scrambled eggs? Nah, those hit the spot. Was it from the stale air of my hotel-room home of the past six days? Quite possibly.

More likely, however, it was the sour aftereffect of covering such a thoroughly disappointing Final Four.

Being a sportswriter, it's part of my DNA to toss around as much hyperbole as possible when chronicling a major event. Having gotten that out of the way last night by bestowing the requisite and deserved praise on Joakim Noah and the Gators -- those guys flat-out earned their trophy -- it's now time to state what will be further reinforced when CBS' presumably record-low overnight ratings are announced: This Final Four stunk.

Where was our Keith Smart jumper from the corner? Our Hakim Warrick block? Our Rumeal Robinson free throw? Our Raymond Felton steal?

Ten years from now, the only thing we might vaguely remember from this Final Four is Noah dunking or Lee Humphrey hitting a three-pointer. And we'll have no recollection whatsoever of when they occurred in the game -- or which game they occurred in -- because the games were too lopsided for the chronology to matter.

"I've covered 20 Final Fours," said a similarly disenchanted writer I found lying prone on a couch in the Marriott Courtyard lobby early Tuesday afternoon, "and this was by far the most uneventful one."

Why did this happen? Why, after such an incredibly entertaining first two weekends of the tournament, did the basketball gods stick us with three stinkers of games? How did a UCLA team go from looking so impressive on Saturday to so out-of-its-league two nights later? Why did Florida have to put on such a basketball clinic so as to render the outcome of its games moot by the early second half?

How could such a traditionally memorable event turn out so darn anticlimactic?