Final Four: everything but slipper

DETROIT – If we can’t have Davidson, this field will have to do.

So here’s the question about a men’s Final Four so gaudy as to make history – with No. 1 seeds, and nothing but.

Does this mean the NCAA selection committee wins the office pool?

It is a foursome of unprecedented tonnage, with a combined record of 143-9.

North Carolina … UCLA … Kansas. Add those three and what do you get? Forty-eight appearances in the Final Four and 17 national championships.

That leaves Memphis – on only its third trip – as the less well-heeled invitee. But the Tigers are a four-point loss to Tennessee away from showing up with a 38-0 record, and nobody else can say that.

So there is a flavor for every taste – unless you’ve come looking for a Cinderella story. Sorry.

You want the national player of the year, who has wowed the vanquished along the way?

North Carolina’s Tyler Hansbrough will be there, with his 22.8 the highest scoring average for a Tar Heel in 38 years.

You want to see how quickly a mature freshman can raise a team’s horizon on the way to the NBA?

Meet UCLA’s Kevin Love and Memphis’ Derrick Rose.

You want to see the most liberated coach in town?

Kansas’ Bill Self will be there, having finally slipped past the bouncers in the regional, the latest brute named Davidson. An 800-pound gorilla off his back. “I thought it was 1,200,” he said.

You want to see Roy Williams conflicted?

North Carolina and Kansas will be there, facing each other Saturday night. Roy Williams’ new team against Roy Williams’ old team.

He was talking Friday about the meeting he had with his Kansas players in 2003 when he told them he was leaving for Chapel Hill. “The feeling I had when I left that room, it’s a feeling I hope I never have again,” he said. “I felt like I was dirty.”

You want to hear the best storyteller in the bracket?

John Calipari will be there, with quotes about everything.

Just Saturday, he mentioned how he had saved 14 different “For Sale” signs in his garage that had been put in his yard by unhappy fans in the early Memphis years (“I keep them there to remind me that it’s not easy, what we do”).

Something has to give this weekend, and only No. 1 seeds need apply. That’s the down side of this history. A remarkable underdog story expired Sunday with the incomparably plucky Davidson Wildcats.

It’s a grand Final Four, but I miss them already.