10 things I liked about this college basketball season

OK, that title game between the Huskies and Bulldogs was a dog. It happens. The great games of history wouldn't be great games if every game were a great game. Right?

But this was a most excellent NCAA men's tournament, even if UConn's championship victory over Butler left a lot to be desired. And there's always that chance UConn could be forced to vacate the crown down the line, because that's college sports.

That said, here are 10 things that made this season nice:

1. Butler. Anyone who makes fun of the Bulldogs' title-game woes should recite the last time their favorite team went to back-to-back championship contests. A handful of teams have done it in the last 30 years. The only one from the Big Ten, Michigan, had theirs stricken from the records. Every time I listened to Butler Coach Brad Stevens, I thought that was a coach who was as respectful to other teams and humble about himself. College sports would have been well-better served with a Butler championship Monday night.

2. Virginia Commonwealth. VCU didn't just beat five big-conference teams, it owned  most of them.

3. Diante Garrett, Iowa State. He deserved to be on a better team this year. His play was stellar, and he had to play a boatload of minutes because ISU was shorthanded all season.

4. Jimmer Fredette of BYU. College basketball's Player of the Year had one eye-popping game after another.

5. Derrick Williams of Arizona, Kemba Walker of UConn, Brandon Knight of Kentucky. I seldom saw these guys until the NCAAs. Fantastic.

6. Jarryd Cole, Iowa. The way he was appreciated at Iowa's final home game, a win over Purdue, was a tribute to a person who stuck out four lousy years of Hawkeye hoops with dignity and character.

7. Jared Sullinger of Ohio State and Harrison Barnes of North Carolina. They are two freshmen who could have taken the NBA leap this year with no one doubting their sanity. They are staying put. Bad for their opponents. Good for college ball.

8. Charles Barkley. He doesn't know all that much about the college teams in 2011, but he gave the tournament some much-needed commentary that didn't worship at the shrine of the college game's big boys. When he told Rick Pitino that Florida State would beat Notre Dame and Pitino dismissively shook his head and "guaranteed" Barkley was wrong, it was precious to see Pitino basically crying uncle by halftime of FSU's win.

9. Kwadzo Ahelegbe, Northern Iowa. The senior point guard had a terrific career, capped by an All-Missouri Valley Conference season and MVC academic honors to boot. Had Lucas O'Rear not been felled by injury late in the regular season, Ahelegbe might have led a third-straight UNI team to the NCAAs.

10. I could choose Gus Johnson of CBS, though he is a little over the top. By 37 stories or so, actually. Or the Richmond fans who wear full Spiderman costumes to games. Or the new television format for the first week of the tourney, which had three and four games on simultaneously and let you play the director, assuming you had good cable/satellite service.

And high honorable mention to Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports, who Tweeted Thank you, Jim Nantz, for unleashing your awful, rehearsed dog puns instead of apologizing to the audience for that fiasco of a game. But instead I select ...

Morehead State's first-round win over Louisville.