Ken Davis

ATLANTA - Every Final Four plays out something like a movie script, complete with memorable storylines. This year, along with the sequel to last year’s championship game between Florida and UCLA, and the Rocky Balboa heavyweight match between Greg Oden and Roy Hibbert, we also have the father-son subplot.

Call it The Thompson Family Album. That’s what we have with Georgetown returning to the Final Four for the first time since 1985.

John Thompson III has led the Hoyas back to college basketball’s promised land. Thompson’s father, Big John as he is known these days, brought Georgetown to this point three times during the 1980’s and won a national championship in 1984. Now Big John is reliving those moments all over again, through his son and whole new batch of Hoyas.

It’s a first. The Final Four has never had a father-son coaching story. It’s cool. It’s fun to watch. It brings the past to life. It gives us goose bumps.

There’s nothing better than telling old stories and making them relevant again.   

But when you really think about it, this is bigger than the past. JT III is bringing the future into focus.

So are Thad Matta of Ohio State, Billy Donovan of Florida, and Ben Howland of UCLA. If you’ve been paying close attention to college basketball, you know who these guys are. If you only tune in each year for the Final Four, you might be a bit confused.

Where’s Mike Krzyzewski? Where are Jim Calhoun and Jim Boeheim? How about Tom Izzo or Rick Pitino? Aren’t those the guys who make the Final Four a big deal?

Well, they have. But we might be witnessing a changing of the guard.

Bob Knight and Krzyzewski each have won three national championships, tops among active coaches and trailing only John Wooden (10) and Adolph Rupp (4). Yet Texas Tech and Duke were irrelevant participants in this year’s tournament. Both lost in the first round. Knight’s Red Raiders lost to Boston College. Duke, accustomed to being a No. 1 or No. 2 seed, came into the tourney as a No. 6 seed and lost to Virginia Commonwealth.

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Boeheim’s Syracuse team was snubbed by the selection committee and played in the NIT. UConn missed postseason play for the first time since 1986-87, Calhoun’s first season with the Huskies. He has won two national championships since 1999, but right now Calhoun is scrambling to put together a team that get back to the NCAA Tournament next year.

The hot names in college coaching today are Billy Donovan, Billy Gillispie, Bruce Pearl, Jamie Dixon, Tim Floyd, Tony Bennett and Bill Self — just to name a few. Guys like JT III and Matta are only in the third season at their school and they suddenly have taken their teams to the Final Four.

Matta, 39, made the move to Columbus from Xavier. He has embraced the Ohio State football program instead of trying to ignore it (a mistake many old school basketball coaches have made). And now it’s obvious athletes will come to Columbus to play basketball — not just football.

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“I think football has been one of our great tools,” Matta said. “I believe we can have both here. I don’t wake up every day and say, ‘My goal is to make this a basketball school.’ I don’t want to do that.”

College basketball is changing. The traditional programs with the long-time coaches are still a factor. But the pool of teams with a chance to win it all is growing. Only one team that was in the Sweet Sixteen in 2005 made it to that point again in 2007 and that team was North Carolina.

Only 12 coaches still active in Division I have a national championship on their resume. That’s a number that could shrink — and shrink fast — with several of those coaches approaching retirement.

That’s why a changing of the guard has to happen.

Donovan, who is making his third Final Four appearance, is already one of the 12. If the Gators win it all again, Donovan moves into elite status as a coach who led his team to back-to-back championships. In recent history, it would be Wooden, Coach K and Billy The Kid.

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