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Practice makes perfect and this Miami Heat Long Sleeve T-Shirt is a perfect choice for cool weather comfort. Features screen printed team name with NBA logo on chest.

The only guarantee going into the 2008 NCAA National Championship Game was that one of two very good coaches-Bill Self of Kansas or John Calipari of Memphis-would win his first national title.

In an NCAA first, the four No. 1 seeds in this year's tournament made it to the coveted Final 4. Both coaches managed to thump their competition in the semifinals as Kansas turned back North Carolina 84-66 and Memphis ripped UCLA 78-63. Both games were about as exciting as watching an ashtray wait for a cigarette butt.

North Carolina had no chance ultimately against Kansas as the Jayhawks went on an early 25-2 run after leading 15-10. The Tar Heels would cut the lead to 4 points-54 to 50-with more than 11 minutes remaining, but then Kansas continued its hot hand, shooting 53% to North Carolina's 36% from the floor. Jayhawk Guard Brandon Rush led all scorers with 25.

Kansas just escaped from Davidson to reach the Final 4 and then dusted off the Tar Heels despite their all-everything player Tyler Hansbrough. It was a tough night for North Carolina Coach Roy Williams, who coached Kansas to national prominence for 15 years before returning to his alma mater in 2003. Williams never won a national title at Kansas but led the Tar Heels to the national title in 2005.

Memphis' 1-2 punch of guards Chris Douglas-Roberts (28 points) and Derrick Rose (25 points) ran UCLA ragged, outscoring the Bruins 14-2 on the fast break. The Tigers put the game away with 10 consecutive free throws (20 of 23 for 87% in the game), well above their season average of 61%.

UCLA's freshman wonder Kevin Love, the Pac 10 Player of the Year, was held to 2 points in the second half and 12 for the game after averaging 21.8 points per game coming in. Love, who is 6-10, ran smack into the Tigers' 6-foot-9, 265-pound Joey Dorsey, a big presence that kept Love at bay. Dorsey also pulled down 15 rebounds.

Memphis Coach John Calipari was giddy with joy moving into the championship game and UCLA Coach Ben Howland was no doubt disappointed after reaching the Final 4 three consecutive years without winning the title game. Memphis' victory was its 38th this year, setting an NCAA record for most wins in a season.

The championship game was a beauty, close as close could be and excellent to the very end of regulation time, when Kansas' Mario Chalmers drained a 3-pointer over Derrick Rose to tie the game at 63 with 2 seconds left. Chalmers' shot would earn him the Most Valuable Player honor.

Memphis had a 9-point lead with 2 minutes left but could not connect on 4 free throws by Chris Douglas-Roberts down the stretch and lost control of the game. Kansas would outscore Memphis 12-5 in overtime to win 75-68 to give Coach Bill Self his first national title Monday night (4-7-08) in one of the best played title games in NCAA history.

Standout freshman Derrick Rose took over the game for Memphis in the second half, scoring 14 of his team's 16 points to build the 9-point lead.

Kansas Coach Bill Self summed up the game best, saying "If we played 10 times, it'd probably go 5 and 5. We got fortunate late."

There were a lot of upsets early on in this year's tournament and a great final game. All in all, a very good year for NCAA basketball and a fitting end to March Madness for 2008.

2008 NCAA Tournament Results for Round 5 - The Final 4

#1 Midwest Regional Champion Kansas eliminated #1 East Regional Champion North Carolina 84-66

#1 South Regional Champion Memphis eliminated #1 West Regional Champion UCLA 78-63

2008 NCAA Tournament Result for Round 6 - National Championship Game

#1 Midwest Regional Champion Kansas beat #1 South Regional Champion Memphis 75-68 to win the National Championship

Postscript on the Final 4 Coaches:

The coaches of the Final 4 teams this year brought a combined 143-9 record, a winning percentage of .941. When you can win 94% of your games you do not compare yourself to others, they need to compare themselves to you because, trust me, you are setting a standard this season that not another 4 coaches in America can match.

The dean of the coaches was North Carolina's Roy Williams, who averaged 28 wins a year for 15 years at Kansas and took the Jayhawks to 4 Final Fours before coming back to his alma mater and leading the Tar Heels to a National Championship in 2005.

Only 5 other coaches in history have led their team to 6 Final Four appearances-John Wooden (12), Dean Smith (11), Mike Krzyzewski (10), Denny Crum (6) and Adolph Rupp (6). It is perhaps no coincidence that Williams honed his craft for 10 years as an assistant coach to Dean Smith at North Carolina.

North Carolina won National Championships in 1957, 1982, 1993 and 2005 and had been among the Final Four 17 times coming into this year's tournament.

Ben Howland marked his 3rd straight Final Four appearance this year. His UCLA Bruins were runner-up in the National Championship game two years ago. He led Pittsburgh to two Sweet 16 appearances before coming to UCLA, and has had the Bruins in the NCAA tournament 4 straight years.

Howland hoped to add to John Wooden's legacy at UCLA but came up short again. Wooden's UCLA teams won 10 national titles and 7 consecutive titles from 1967 to 1973. This year marked the Bruins' 18th Final Four appearance.

Wooden's UCLA record during his 10 National Championship years was 291-10 (not a misprint); it rounds to a 97% winning percentage and includes no less than 4 perfect 30-0 seasons. In short, there is Wooden and everyone else when it comes to winning basketball games and national titles.

Memphis coach John Calipari had never won a national title but did built two smaller conference teams-Massachusetts in the Atlantic 10 and Memphis in Conference USA-into national powers, reaching the Final Four with both. His Memphis Tigers won 103 games during the last 3 years, only 1 win shy of Kentucky's national record from 1996 to 1998.

Since Calipari's last appearance in the 1985 Final Four match-ups, the other 3 teams in this year's field combined for 19 Final Four appearances and 4 national titles-Kansas in 1988, UCLA in 1995 and North Carolina in 1993 and 2005.

Kansas coach Bill Self could not claim a national title coming into this year's Final Four. In 15 years as a head coach, Self averaged 23 wins a season, won 8 conference championships and had taken 4 teams deep in the tournament, but none of them to the Final Four until this year.

Until this season, Self had more NCAA tournament wins-18-without reaching the Final Four than any other active coach. Only two other coaches have more wins than Self without reaching the Final Four-Temple's John Chaney with 23 and Purdue's Gene Keady with 19.

Copyright 2008 Ed Bagley

Ed Bagley's Blog Publishes Original Articles with Analysis and Commentary on 5 Subjects: Sports, Movie Reviews, Lessons in Life, Jobs and Careers, and Internet Marketing. My intention is to inform, educate, delight and motivate you the reader.

Read my additional NCAA coverage on the "First 2 Rounds in 2008 NCAA Tournament Produce 1 Major Upset in Every 6 Games" and "The Final 4 for the 2008 NCAA Tournament: North Carolina, Memphis, UCLA and Kansas" plus my 4 basketball articles on last year's 2007 NCAA Basketball Tournament detailing Florida's National Championship run. Click on my Sports Section to find these articles.

Find my Blog at:
http://www.edbagleyblog.com
http://www.edbagleyblog.com/Sports.html

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L.A. Rugs TSC-152 Supreme Basketball Court Sports Rug

L.A. Rugs TSC-152 With its extra high pile and hand carved design, the Supreme Collection offers a high quality option for your child's room. This 100% nylon machine made rug is durable and very easy to clean and is a non-skid rug for additional safety. Because of the unique design of each rug, one is sure to be right for your child. The Supreme Basketball Court Sports Rug is a basketball court design, perfect for your little basketball star. Features: -Machine made in the USA with 100% nylon -Kids rug with non-skid backing for extra safety -Extra high pile -Hand carved -Image of a basketball court -Available sizes: 3'3'' x 4'10'', 5'3" x 7'6" Note: Please be aware that actual colors may vary from those shown on your screen.

The foundation - and a flimsy one it may turn out to be - of the proposition to raise the legal age limit of the NBA to 21 is that both the league and the colleges will be best served by the restriction.

The colleges will benefit because the great players that would otherwise be pros will be plying their talents for their dear old schools for an additional year, raising the level of the college game. And the NBA will benefit because rookies coming in will be armed with the requisite skills and savoir-faire to better represent themselves and, by extension, the NBA's product.

These seem to be sound arguments, on both sides. The only thing they ignore is the voice of the one in the middle - the athlete himself.

Let's say you are a 20-year-old college basketball player, and gifted. You're six-eight or six-nine, you can run like a horse and fly like a bird, and you're busting at the seams to test your mettle in the crucible of the NBA.

But the powers-that-be say you need to wait another year - for your own good, of course. Even though you're old enough to be sent overseas to fight and possibly to die, you're not quite mature enough for the rigors of professional basketball.

Another year of school is what you need, they agree - another year of seasoning and sophistication. Never mind that you have yet to see the inside of a classroom - that the only two buildings on campus you've visited are the field house and the cafeteria.

Your university is all for you staying - at least your coach and the fans are - but you can't see how hanging around for another year is going to make you any smarter. And for the life of you, you can't see how one more year at State U will satisfy the people who are always shouting about the importance of higher education.

No, you're no scholar, but you can't help but get the idea that you're being used.

You see that your college is getting your services for another year when you could be offering them on the open market. And you figure out that the NBA is keeping its future labor down on the farm, cultivating it at the college's expense. But since the college is raking in millions in revenue from its basketball program...

The age-limit restriction is patently unfair to the athletes, and maybe even an illegal violation of their right to earn a living.

I'm a writer living near Nashville, and maybe the only one within a 50-mile radius who's never written a song. Writing fiction is my preference, but journalism provides my daily bread. I'm from the Clark Kent school of journalism -- I never carry a pad to take notes, but rely on my super-memory. Actually, in my stories I make up quotes, making people sound more interesting and well-spoken than they are, so they never object. You know how Truman Capote ("In Cold Blood") gave birth to the "non-fiction novel?" I'm working on popularizing the "fictional news" story.

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Highland Mint San Antonio Spurs Tim Duncan 24KT Gold Coin Photo Mint

Tim Duncan is one of the NBA's® best players. You can show your passion for Duncan's play on the hardwood by hanging this Highland Mint® San Antonio Spurs Duncan photomint with 2 gold coins. An 8-in x 10-in action photo of Duncan during the 2007 NBA® Finals against Cleveland is stationed above a 24KT gold overlay team coin and a 24KT gold NBA® Finals coin. The entire piece is double matted and presented in a 13-in x 16-in frame.

Serious basketball coaches are always looking for ways to get an edge on the competition to gain an advantage. It's why you spend so much time researching methods of training that will make your players faster and stronger and jump higher without taking up too much time to get results.

That's why I believe that running hill sprints (which includes running bleachers and stairs) is a must for any basketball player.

This is because hill sprints provide a number of benefits to the basketball athlete. Here are the Top 6:

1. Hill sprints provide the perfect combination of strength and speed training.

It's like lifting weights and sprinting at the same time. The hill gives resistance to your athlete's sprints, making them more difficult while being shorter in distance and duration. Including hill sprints in your training program can bring great results in as little as 15 minutes 1 or 2 times per week.

2. Hill sprints build stamina.

Endurance is something that every basketball player needs but it is a special kind of endurance. If you want your athletes to perform at their peak, then low, slow distance types of cardio just won't work. Their endurance training needs to mimic the demands of the game. Those needs being short bouts of intense exertion broken up by periods of lower intensities.

Hill sprints provide just this type of interval training. They will take your players' hearts and lungs to intensities far greater than those found in jogging or traditional types of endurance training. Their body will become used to reaching these higher levels, and recovering quickly in between the "sprints."

More and more scientific studies are showing that VO2 Max (the traditional measure of aerobic endurance) is improved as much or more- by using high intensity interval-type exercise like hill sprinting.

Want your team to have their "wind" at the end of the game? Hill sprint.

3. Hill sprints increase ankle strength helping to prevent one of the most common injuries in sports the ankle sprain.

Ankles are made stronger due to the need to push off harder when sprinting up the hill. Because of the incline, more drive is needed than when sprinting on a flat surface. Improved ankle strength also leads to the ability to push off harder during the game benefiting a player's important "first step" and lengthening their stride when sprinting in a breakaway on the court.

4. Hill sprints increase basketball players' speed and explosiveness.

This is because hill training promotes two key factors in running faster and jumping higher. First, it forces proper knee lift essential for driving the legs downward and back for more force. Second, hill sprinting makes the sprinter dorsi-flex their foot while running. The closer the toes are brought to the shin, the more force they can apply on ground contact. Think of dorsi-flexing as loading your foot then unloading it into the ground - pushing you forward.

Explosiveness is also shown in the way hill sprints can increase your players' vertical jumps a key measure of power. Jumping is really the same as sprinting pushing your body forward (or up) against gravity. The more power you can generate from your legs when pushing, the farther or higher you will go.

5. Hill sprints provide a way to safely train your athletes.

In addition to protecting your ankles, hill sprinting protects your athletes' from other types of injuries as well. The last thing you want to do is to injure your athletes while conditioning.

Hill sprinting provides safety in two ways: One, the slightly shorter stride length while running a hill sprint is a great way to protect hamstrings. Most hamstring pulls and strains result from over-extension something which rarely occurs when sprinting hills.

Second, hill sprints can decrease the pounding on your players' legs. Studies have shown that even a slight grade added to sprints can decrease the impact on the runner's legs by as much as 25%. Shin splints, foot problems and sore knees can be greatly reduced by getting on the hills for your sprints.

6. Hill sprints as mental training

Besides all of the physical benefits of hill sprinting, they also promote mental toughness and goal-setting behavior in your athletes. Looking up at the hill can be daunting when your players are fatigued and nearing the end of their sprint session. By using the hill as a metaphor, you can show them the importance of having a goal (the top of the hill), taking the steps necessary to reach it (one step at a time up the hill), and celebrating their success when they reach their goal (their very own Rocky imitation at the top of the hill). Looking back down the hill after their workout, your athletes can feel the satisfaction of accomplishing something that may have seemed an impossible obstacle.

With all of these benefits for your basketball team, adding hill sprints to your training program should go to the top of your To Do List. It's no coincidence that we found out that this year's NCAA player of the year Kevin Durant made hill sprints a key part of his training. You can develop your own "special" players the same way.

Make your athletes stronger, faster, better conditioned, injury resistant and mentally tough with this "old school" training. You, your team and your fans will be glad you did.

Tim Alan Kauppinen, or Coach K, has over 20 years experience as an athlete and coach. He has worked with athletes of all ages and abilities in track and field, basketball, speed training and strength and conditioning after graduating from the University of Wisconsin - Madison with a coaching emphasis. This has given him the privilege and the opportunity to coach athletes who have become conference champions, state champions and Division I college players. Coach K is the author of the Uphill Fitness Training, Ultimate Insider Speed Training Secrets and Iron Shins programs. He also publishes a FREE daily training email newsletter.

Tim can be contacted through his website at
http://www.makesyoufast.com/power_hill_sprint.html

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Converse Chuck Taylor All Star Lo Top Toddlers Optical White

Classic look that has not changed in years and years. Have your kids try them for the first time.

Washington is a state of shear beauty with lush green landscapes, amazing waterways and towering mountains. RV lodgings in Washington are hit and miss, so here are some good choices.

High up along the West Coast of the continental United States lies a state that's full of wonder and majesty. Washington may be the northernmost state on the West Coast, but there is nothing chilly about the reception you will get from the residents here. Forget what you've heard about the rainy weather and dreariness Washington offers some of the most amazing climbing, hiking and nature activities in the entire country. If you have ever wanted to see a volcano up close, or just explore the many coffee houses of Seattle, this is the place to be. The RV lodgings in Washington are ideal for any family looking for a place to stay in this state.

The San Juan Islands are located just 90 miles away from Seattle, in the middle of Washington's biggest inlet. The islands are actually four separate islands, some of which can only be reached by ferry or plane, while others are drivable due to bridges. While on these islands, you can enjoy life the way that Pacific Northwesterners always have in fact, the town of La Conner, which is in the San Juan Islands, has been awarded the title The Town that Best Captures the Northwest Spirit. Other spots here are havens for artists and antique shops, as well as being a great place to go whale watching and to see the local wildlife.

When searching for RV lodgings in Washington that are located in the San Juan Islands, there are not very many. Some of the smaller islands do not allow large vehicles on their roads. There is one RV park, however, that is easily accessible by tourists wishing to stay in the area. The Pioneer Trails RV Resort and Campground is located in Anacortes, Washington which is on Fidalgo Island. From here, you can explore all that the islands have to offer. The campground itself has 60 sites available for tent and RV camping, with 50 of the sites being full hookups (which include water, electric and sewer services).

There are other amenities to be found at the Pioneer Trails RV Resort and Campground, besides the wonder of the Evergreen forest that the site is located in. Each RV site here is what the park calls a super site, meaning that it is larger than a standard RV spot and also includes a private cabana for your use. Additionally, both cable TV and wireless Internet are offered at each site, and there are spotless bathrooms and shower facilities for guest use. A full service laundry center offers easy access to this need, and swimming pools, playgrounds, tennis courts and a basketball court make your stay here even more fun.

Traveling to the Pacific Northwest is a vacation that is on many families' to do lists. RV lodgings in Washington are set up so that you can easily stay in the wilderness that is Washington State, all while enjoying the amenities that make a vacation relaxing.

Find more information on RV campgrounds at RVRentalsforyou.com.

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