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NCAA Championship Game 2011

So it's all come down to this after a month of March Madness. There are no No. 1 seeds and the one-seeds have been gone for awhile - and that's perfectly OK. We're left with the third-seeded Connecticut Huskies led by Kemba Walker and the Cinderella Butler Bulldogs, led by Matt Howard for the 2011 Men's NCAA Championship game.

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Butler, of course, is making a repeat trip to the title game. The Bulldogs fell short last year, losing to Duke 61-59 despite Gordon Hayward's best effort at a Hail Mary three that nearly went in. The eighth-seeded Bulldogs knocked off top-seeded Pittsburgh and second-seeded Florida to reach the Final Four, before beating fellow Cinderella VCU in the first Final Four game.

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Connecticut, meanwhile, comes into the title game as hot as any team could. UConn rolled off five wins in five days to win the Big East tournament and have made their way to the title game. If Connecticut wins, Jim Calhoun would notch his third national title, which would put him with John Wooden, Adolph Rupp, Mike Krzyzewski and Bob Knight as the only coaches to win three or more titles. 

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Tipoff is scheduled for 9:23 p.m. EST. 

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I'll be rooting for Connecticut of course, so you probably should be too. Aside from the fact that I picked UConn to win in both SB Nation Dallas' bracket pool - which, Liam Ponting appears to have won - I've lived in Connecticut my whole life. It's not like we have any type of professional team here in the state, so this is as good as it gets for us - though, I'll gladly trade this for a Pats Super Bowl.

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Photographs by jamesbrandon, jdtornow, phlezk, flygraphix, mcdlttx, tomasland, and literalbarrage used in background montage under Creative Commons. Thank you.