Cramer: Final Four Preview (Part 1 of 2)

As we draw closer and closer to the start of the NBA Playoffs and opening day in the MLB, there's still one major sporting event that needs to take place. Yeah, the Final Four. If any of you are like me... your bracket has officially been busted and you've lost all monetary interest in March Madness. Not only that, but if you have similar feelings to mine, you're not really all that interested in any of the teams in the final four.

Take a look at our four teams: Michigan State, Butler, West Virginia, and Duke. For the next two days I'm going to give you a preview for the two teams I believe will lose, and tell you why we shouldn't care about them:

Michigan State: this is the easiest one in the bunch. Michigan State finished tied atop the Big Ten standings at 14-4. However, they lost to Ohio State in East Lansing, 74-67. That being said, it's pretty safe to assume that Sparty wasn't even the best team in their own conference. Couple that with the fact that they're missing their best player, Kalin Lucas, and this Tom Izzo team becomes even less compelling. Finally, their road to the final four wasn't much to be proud of either:

1st round- Beat 12 seeded New Mexico State 70-67. This 12-5 match-up is usually one to keep an eye on, but given that Michigan State returned a good amount of talent from their runner-up team last year, they shouldn't have had such a close game in the first round.

2nd round- Beat 4 seeded Maryland 85-83. I didn't get to see a lot of this game because it wasn't aired in my area, but I did get to see the end. They lost Kalin Lucas, but got a huge shot from Korie Lucious to win at the buzzer. This was a good win, but once again: it shouldn't have been as close as it was.

3rd round- Beat 9 seeded Northern Iowa 59-52. Who cares? Northern Iowa got a round or two further than they should have by beating number one overall seed Kansas. If UNI and Kansas played 10 times, Kansas would have won 9 of those match-ups. It's hard to look at this win as a great one for the Spartans. MSU got some big shots again, but all evidence would
suggest that they would have lost to Kansas if the Jayhawks hadn't faltered a round earlier.

4th round- Beat 6 seeded Tennessee 70-69. Once again Michigan State got lucky and faced a lower seed than they should have. Georgetown and Ohio State are both better teams than Tennessee, but GTown lost to Ohio (similar situation to Kansas and Northern Iowa), and Ohio State didn't quite have their A game against the Men Vols (why do they call the Women's team the Lady Vols? Everyone knows they're probably better than the Men anyway). This game also could have gone either way.

Conclusion for MSU: Izzo's Crew didn't really play the toughest competition they could have on their road to the final four. That, and the fact that they're missing their best player, makes this 5 seeded team rather uninteresting.