Let's get it out of the way at the top. No need to sugarcoat. On first glance, and probably on second and third too, this is a dog Final Four. It's the ugly stepchild stealing the spotlight on college basketball's premiere weekend, a motley crew mostly filled with teams you either don't care about or didn't even know you could care about. Imagine a Bengals/Cardinals Super Bowl, then keep going down that path. A little further. Keep walking. There it is: your 2017 NCAA tournament Final Four.

With the very-large exception of North Carolina, the other teams who'll take the court next weekend in Phoenix are national unknowns. The smallest of the bunch has no national basketball footprint. Though respected in sports circles because of nearly 20 years of consistency, Gonzaga is best known by the general public, if at all, as March's perennial little engine that couldn't. Travesty or not, the only way for a team west of the Rockies to make a name for itself in a sports world dominated by East Coast bias is to be extraordinary (and even Gonzaga's 29-0 start barely moved the needle) or loud (Lonzo Ball's UCLA). Oregon's Nike jerseys cover the latter, but the team itself is a Pac 12 squad with no pedigree that doesn't get the attention it would if it played in the ACC or Big Ten. As for South Carolina; up until three weeks ago, most alums probably couldn't have told you a thing about the basketball program - except the coach. The one who yells a lot and whose face turns the same shade of garnet that's on the team's jerseys.