After two-plus weeks of play that included a play-in game, the NCAA Tournament field of 65 has been weed-whacked down to the Final Four in Detroit.

Villanova defeated top-seeded Pittsburgh in the East and will play North Carolina, which drained the oil out of Oklahoma in the South.

And Michigan State, which outhustled the Midwest region away from top-seeded Louisville, will play convicted-by-Yahoo! Connecticut, champion of the West.

So, four teams, all owning intriguing story lines, do the march toward April, for games Saturday and the following Monday:

MICHIGAN STATE

There's more than a school involved here. The Spartans are the first school to play a Final Four in its home state since Duke in 1994, and the timing couldn't be better.

The "state" of Michigan is crud. A woman working for a Detroit paper, during a 15-minute media shuttle bus ride back to the hotel after the Boston regional, told a Pittsburgh television man a modernized version of "The Grapes of Wrath." She spoke of foreclosed homes in her neighborhood falling into disrepair as the banks sit back and do nothing. She spoke of colleagues desperate for work and her possibly, soon, becoming one of them. She hoped the media arriving for the Final Four wouldn't disparage her city more than the economy already has.

Detroit needed Michigan State in the Final Four the way New Orleans needed the Saints after Katrina.

"I'm hoping we're the sunshine," Spartans' Coach Tom Izzo said Sunday. "I'm hoping we're something to embrace."

Prepare, Spartans, to get hugged.

CONNECTICUT

The Huskies advance to their third Final Four under a different cloud. Players didn't even cut down the nets after outlasting Missouri in Arizona even though both of the Huskies' national titles, in 1999 and 2004, were won out of the West.

"I'm buying a house," Coach Jim Calhoun joked in between questions about the 508-page NCAA rules manual.

There have been few chuckles for a coach embattled by a Yahoo! report that seems to have nailed the program with NCAA violations tied to a player, Nate Miles, who never enjoyed a media timeout with this team.

The Huskies have already overcome the loss of star guard Jerome Dyson to injury, and now this?

Calhoun, 66, is growing haggard by the minute as he battles his inquisitors.

"It does matter," he said of his reputation. "I'm a human being. I wear my emotions on my sleeve."

If Connecticut does win the national title, it wouldn't be a shock if Calhoun faxed in his retirement next July from a summer cottage.

VILLANOVA

The third-seeded Wildcats aren't George Mason, but they're as close to charming as we can muster with their squad of overachieving "tweener," players, a newly christened, game-winning hero in guard Scottie Reynolds and nice-guy Jay Wright -- who dresses as well as he coaches.

Villanova has a back story, returning to the Final Four for the first time since 1985, the year it shocked Patrick Ewing and Hoya Paranoia to win the national title.

This year, the Wildcats need to shock Tyler Hansbrough and North Carolina.

NORTH CAROLINA

Well, what do you know? The Tar Heel team some projected as one of the greatest of all time before it opened conference play 0-2 is now nicely positioned to render unto Carolina all that is Carolina's: um, the national title.

Looking ahead: North Carolina against Michigan State in the title game would be a rematch of a game played at Ford Field last December. The mighty Tar Heels booked the game at the Final Four site to, you know, measure the drapes.

North Carolina won by 35.

After Michigan State defeated USC in the NCAA Tournament, someone asked Spartan center Goran Suton what team left in the field he wanted to play most.

Suton broke the cardinal "one-game-at-a-time" rule and jumped four rungs ahead in the bracket:

"Down the road I would like to play the North Carolina game," Suton said.

Either way, Tar Heels' Coach Roy Williams is always good for a good laugh.

Or a good cry.

Chris Dufresne covers college sports for the Los Angeles Times.

(March 30, 2009)