A longtime friend of mine, Gary Walters, who is the athletic director at Princeton U., headed up this year’s Final Four selection committee. After the selections were announced, he and his committee received the usual criticism – they missed this team or that team. You know the old story.

But this year they got it right. Almost letter perfect.

Parity was here with 161,869 entries in ESPN.com’s NCAA Tournament bracket contest getting it right. Last year only four of the 3.1 million entries in the tourney got all four teams – Florida, UCLA, LSU and George Mason. Some feel the new rule prohibiting high school seniors from applying for the NBA Draft helped. A lot of teams had outstanding first year players. We predicted two columns ago that there would be few actual upsets because of the depth among so many outstanding teams.

Physicality. That’s the key. Three years ago we figured the team with the biggest front line would take home all the marbles, and it happened with Connecticut taking the tourney. Two years ago, North Carolina gave Roy Williams his first Final Four trophy and Florida won it last season with a late season surge. This season, all its bigs came back and Florida took the SEC crown en route to a second consecutive chance at the title. They and Ohio State were numero uno seeds while Georgetown, who won the Big East, returned to the Big Dance for the first time since 1985. They and UCLA, back for its 17th trip to the Final Four, were seeded second.

My oldest son, Eliot, was a senior at Georgetown that year, when the Finals were held in Lexington, Kentucky. My wife Marcia is still mad at me for not getting tickets to that event, but I managed to get a couple for Eliot and his roommate, who rented a Cadillac so they could arrive in style from Washington, D.C. They had a great time picking up NBA people at the Lexington airport and taking them to their hotels. Marcia and I had been to the Final Four in 1982 when Air Jordan had dropped in the last minute shot to win it for the Tarheels.

Bill Rhoden wrote in The New York Times last Monday that Georgetown is the closest we have to an underdog story in this year’s tournament. George Mason made it to the Final Four last year after upsetting Michigan State, Connecticut and North Carolina. Everyone felt the George Masons of the world had arrived. It ain’t going to happen on a consistent basis. Physicality. Big strong bodies control the boards. I defy anyone to come out and pick a winner.

Ben Howland has the Bruins back better than ever. They are an up-tempo team who remembers how Florida won big last year. They meet again Saturday. Florida is 33-5 and UCLA is 30-5. Not once since John Wooden led UCLA to nine wins in nine tries from 1967-1975 has UCLA made consecutive Final Four appearances. There is not much to choose between them.

Ohio State, which has survived two close calls, is 34-3 and Georgetown is 30-6, tying last Sunday’s game with a last second shot and winning big in overtime over the Tar Heels. Both have good bigs and deep benches. These will be classic encounters, right down to the wire.

Credit the losing coaches last weekend with stellar efforts. Oregon’s Ernie Kent turned his team around and nearly pulled what would have been the upset of the tourney. A good coach is a good coach. Lon Kruger, head man of the Runnin’ Rebels, has now taken four teams – Kansas State, Illinois, Florida and UNLV – to the NCAAs. John Calipari and his Memphis Tigers had the nation’s longest win streak before losing to the Buckeyes. They were a number two seed. And Kansas, another one seed, couldn’t stop the UCLA fast break, but beat their previous efforts. Bill Self, the Kansas mentor, has been to the Elite Eight four times with three schools.

Another thing to note: Last year no number one seed made it to the Final Four for the first time since the bracket went to 64 in 1985.

Gentlemen, start your televisions. The Final Four is about to begin.