Etc.

NCAA basketball champions: some sneak up on title

This looks as though it may be a wide-open year for the men's National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball tournament, which opens Tuesday night and winds up with the Final Four in Detroit April 4-6. Even the University of Louisville, which earned the top overall seeding among 65 teams, has five losses entering postseason play. So it could be that a school with a good-but-not-great record hits its stride in the tournament and runs the table, winning six straight games and the championship. A University of Kansas squad that won it all in 1988 despite an 11- loss regular season record showed the virtues of getting hot at the right time. It holds the record for lowest overall winning percentage (.711) for a championship team. The Kansas Jayhawks and the other teams that have earned titles with the lowest overall winning percentages, and the years of their triumphs:

• 1. Kansas (1988 ) .711
• 2. Villanova (1985) .714
• 3. North Carolina State (1983).722
• 4. Arizona (1997) .735
• 5. Indiana (1981) .743
• 6. Marquette (1977) .781
• 7. Kentucky (1958) .793
• 8. Michigan (1989) .811
• 9. Michigan State (1979) .813
• 10. Louisville (1986) (tie) Duke (1991) (tie) Michigan State (2000).821

Official 2009 NCAA Men's Final Four Records Book