This year's dance has been exciting, but not best ever

	Roy Hibbert and Jeff Green have taken Georgetown to another level with their poise and athleticism. Al Tielemans/SI
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ON BOARD DELTA FLIGHT 621 TO ATLANTA -- Time to fire it up, folks: The Final Four is upon us, and I haven't been this hyped about the national-semifinal matchups since, well, since ever. We'll have five things for you to ponder tomorrow, but for now here's one big thing to think about (while wondering why so many people drink in airports at 9 a.m. on a weekday):

This year's NCAA tournament has been good -- and it has a chance this week to become truly great. I'm not ready to call this the best tournament in years. Not yet, at least. Everyone has their own definition of what makes a tournament memorable, but for my money the all-time great tournaments have three components:

• Memorable opening-week upsets. There's a reason most fans enjoy the tourney's first week more than any other week in sports. We want to see upsets. At the very least, we want to see the No. 2 seed barely hold off the No. 15 seed. And we want the adrenalin rush that comes from flipping from one heart-stopping first-round game to another.

• Entertaining, high-quality play. Nobody wants to sit through turnover-fests, gear-grinding defensive struggles or an epidemic of clanging 10-footers. Give me flowing games. Give me future pros. Give me 30-foot backdoor bounce passes off the dribble on a dime. (Thank you, Georgetown.)

• Close games. This almost goes without saying. Few things are tougher for neutral fans to handle than double-digit leads, especially at the regionals and Final Four.

That's why I don't see how any sane person can argue that this year's tournament (*so far) has been the best in years -- nobody who watched the 2005 NCAAs sober would tell you so. Don't get me wrong: if these three games this week deliver on their tantalizing promise, I'll be the first to hail the 2007 Final Four as the hoops equivalent of 1982 Bordeaux or 1970 Brazil or 1984 Eddie Murphy. But on the whole the 2007 tournament isn't there yet. Let's break it down:

• Memorable opening-week upsets: Let's be honest. The '07 tourney had one of the worst opening weeks since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985. Only two double-digit seeds won even a single game (Winthrop and VCU), and both were gone in Round 2. Granted, watching VCU beat Duke was probably worth five upsets to most fans, but it didn't make up for a demoralizing first round with way too many blowouts. An exhilarating Saturday (with overtimes and close games galore, headed by Ohio State's survival act against Xavier) gave way to more blah on Sunday.

• Entertaining, high-quality play. Now we're getting somewhere. SI's "Big Is Back" preseason issue celebrated the return of low-post dinosaur to college basketball, and the results on the court have been fantastic. Take Ohio State, which was basically a one-dimensional three-point-shooting team the past couple years until the arrival of Greg Oden (and, for that matter, Mike Conley Jr.). Both freshmen have added new dimensions to the Buckeyes, Oden providing a real threat down low and Conley a whip smart penetrator who can wreak havoc in the lane. The result: more entertaining, sophisticated hoops.

The same thing goes for Georgetown, which proves that you can run the Princeton offense with great athletes at a faster speed -- and delight the pants off hoops fans in the process. I love the Hoyas guards, but I can't contain myself when it comes to their bigs, Jeff Green and Roy Hibbert, who combine poise, smarts, size and athleticism in a way that we've rarely seen at the college level over the past decade.

Amazingly, Florida's two top big guys, Joakim Noah and Al Horford, may even be better, not least because they can perform the usual big-man tasks while running the floor (and even defending on the perimeter!) like players six inches shorter. Plus, now that the Gators' guards are starting to heat up from three-point range again, Florida is back to being the team that was so fun to watch over the last couple of years.

When it comes to UCLA, the entertainment level drops a bit, but not too much. You have to respect the way the Bruins bring it on the defensive end every game, and the high-wire, high-degree-of-difficulty shooting against Kansas was a sight to behold. (Also, big man Lorenzo Mata is one of our all-time favorites for several reasons, not all of them intentional.)

Sports Illustrated senior writer Grant Wahl covers college basketball for the magazine and SI.com.