Ellen Ozier / Reuters

The closest thing to a sure-fire champ in the NCAA Tournament isn't Illinois, but North Carolina, writes NBCSports.com's Mike Celizic.

Roy Williams is wrong when he says his worst nightmare is taking North Carolina to the Final Four and facing his old team, Kansas, in the championship game. Even worse than that for him should be not getting to the Final Four at all.

Forget the rankings. Like last year, the team with the best chance to win it all isn’t the team rated No. 1. It’s the team with the most talent, with size up front and a great point guard, the team built for a championship.

Last year, that team was Connecticut, which lost six games during the regular season, but was the pick many analysts to win it all despite being hit with a No. 2 seed for the NCAA Tournament. UConn had Ben Gordon hitting from outside, Taliek Brown running the offense and the NCAA's most dominant center, Emeka Okafor, up front.

The Huskies also had depth, with two freshmen making big impacts, forwards Josh Boone, a starter, and Charlie Villanueva, who came off the bench.

The sentimental choice was St. Joe’s, which, behind Jameer Nelson, nearly ran the table on the season and led college basketball in feel-good feature stories. But in the end, despite a No. 1 seed, St. Joe’s didn’t have enough to win in the tournament.

It’s shaping up that way again, but with different teams.

This year, it’s the second-ranked Tar Heels playing the role of Connecticut while Illinois toyed with the notion of unbeaten regular season. But the Illini have run up their record in a Big Ten that isn’t having its best year, and it relies on a three-guard offense.

The guards — Dee Brown, Deron Williams and Luther Head — are as good as any trio of small men the game has seen on one team for quite some time. But, while good guards are crucial for NCAA success, few small teams have cut down the nets recently. The last that qualifies would be the 1997 Arizona squad that had capable big men.

There’s a good reason for that, and it’s the same reason that if you’re 7-foot-4 and have a pulse you’re a first-round draft choice in the NBA: size matters. Big men control rebounds and get easy points inside. They’re particularly vital in the NCAA tournament — or the NBA tournament, for that matter.

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