INDIANAPOLIS – Willie Cauley-Stein was sandwiched between one of his Saturday opponents and a guard who plays for the team Kentucky fans revile perhaps more than any other.Cauley-Stein could only say good things about Wisconsin’s Frank Kaminsky and Duke’s Quinn Cook, as well as Michigan State senior Travis Trice.”Just a great respect for each one of these players up here, and their teams,” Cauley-Stein said. “You know, each one of us is a big part of their team, the way they run things. It’s really just a good respect.”With Kaminsky, the respect seemed to be accompanied by a budding rapport. The two 7-footers walked on to the podium for a Thursday Final Four press conference in the middle of an easy conversation. Within a few minutes, Kaminsky revealed what they had bonded over.”Personality-wise, we were talking about Super Smash Bros. on the way up here, so I feel like we would get along,” Kaminsky said.Kaminsky and Cauley-Stein got to keep talking about their video game of choice once they sat down when a reporter asked them about their character of choice. It was another point of bonding.”I’ve been trying Captain Falcon,” Kaminsky said. “He’s really slow, so I think I’m going to go back to Kirby.””I play with Kirby just because he can change,” Cauley-Stein said. “He can change into anybody he’s playing against. And he flies around, so when you get knocked off the little stage, you can just fly back and you don’t have to worry about jumping.”Kaminsky and Cauley-Stein, however, will be putting the controllers down and stepping onto a significantly bigger stage themselves come Saturday at 8:49 p.m. at Lucas Oil Stadium. Just like with Super Smash Bros., the right to play the next game will be on the line, but this time the next game is the national championship.Coack K, Izzo praise CatsMike Krzyzewski hasn’t watched much of Kentucky this year.Considering the Wildcats aren’t on Duke’s schedule and won’t be unless both teams advance to the national championship game Monday, that makes sense.That doesn’t mean he’s not aware that John Calipari’s team is the story of college basketball this season.”John has done an amazing job with his group, and it’s been good for college basketball in that you’ve been talking about a team instead of talking about freshmen or individuals,” Coach K said.UK has its share of talented freshmen and individual stars, but its cohesiveness and depth have carried the Cats to a 38-0 mark entering the Final Four. The regular season began with the Cats ranked No. 1 based largely on their roster featuring nine McDonald’s All-Americans. It ended the same way because they turned their potential into something special. “You got to be talented,” Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo said. “And I think Mike alluded to it with Kentucky this year, guys are willing to take on different roles, not play as many minutes, not score as many points. I think the more talent you have, the better it is, as long as it’s talent that’s coachable and talent that has a team concept in mind.”There’s no questioning that UK constantly has that team concept in mind. The result has been a narrative positive for the game.”For a few years we’ve gotten to be like the pros where it’s a matchup of individuals,” Krzyzewski said. “This year it’s a renewal of what college basketball should be: It’s about teams. Kentucky’s been a great team.”Talent aplenty at Final FourBo Ryan knows better than anyone how good this Final Four field is.Within the last calendar year, his Wisconsin Badgers have played Kentucky in the 2014 Final Four, Duke on Dec. 3 and Michigan State twice in the last six weeks.”What I can say about the talent is there’s shooters, there’s ball handlers, there’s bigs,” Ryan said. “I mean, you can go from every aspect of the game of basketball and look at these four teams, there are guys that are just blue-collar guys that are there to rebound and play defense, there are guys that are there to score, there are guys that are there to kill you in the post, there’s guys defensively that can lock you down. “I would say in this Final Four, having played all the teams within the past year, there’s a little bit of everything. It’s at a very high level.”Beyond the talent, each of the four teams has faced a tough road to get here. Combined, they have defeated three No. 2 seeds, two No. 3 seeds, two No. 4 seeds and two No. 5 seeds. None has faced a double-digit seed after the round of 64.”That’s what you admire about people that have success in this tournament, you know how hard it is,” Izzo said. “It’s not just about being good enough, you’ve got to be lucky. We have gotten here (in the past) because teams lost. One year it was Kansas who was ranked. I think this year, we’ve all earned our way without major surprises or many major surprises. That’s pretty good.”Champions Classic reunionIn
November, Kentucky, Duke, Michigan State and Kansas played the first
two marquee games of the college basketball season in the Champions
Classic.In April, three of the four have returned to Indianapolis for the last three games.Michigan
State and Duke will play in one national semifinal – a rematch of an
81-71 Duke win on Nov. 18 – while Wisconsin subs in as Kentucky’s
opponent in the other.Coach K called it “prophetic” that the three teams are in the Final Four together.”That’s been a good deal for our programs, I think, to play that doubleheader at the start of each year,” Krzyzewski said.