Four Teams Remaining By ESPN Kids Writer

And then there were four.

After a thrilling weekend of college basketball, there are just four teams remaining in the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament: Connecticut, North Carolina, Villanova and Michigan State. All four are very good teams and each have a shot at winning the National Championship.

On Saturday, Michigan State will play Connecticut and North Carolina will play Villanova in the Semifinals. The winners will advance to play in the Championship Game on Monday.

All season long, the North Carolina Tarheels and the Connecticut Huskies competed for the country's number one ranking. Both were number one seeds in their section of the tournament bracket. They are considered two of the best teams in the country and a lot of fans predicted that they would be in the Final Four. On the other hand, the fact that the Michigan State Spartans and the Villanova Wildcats made the Semifinals is a little bit of a surprise. The Spartans battled injuries all year and had to beat Louisville, the top-ranked team in the country, in order to get to the Final Four. Villanova played in the closest game in the quarterfinal round, beating Pittsburgh when star guard Scottie Reynolds made a layup with less than a second left to win the game.

Although all four of these teams took different paths to the Semifinals, they have one thing in common. When the season started last fall, all of these teams set out with the goal to reach the Final Four. It has been a very long season, but the players and coaches for Connecticut, North Carolina, Michigan State and Villanova all worked together to achieve this goal.

Think about the times when you set a goal and reached it. Maybe you studied hard for a big test and got an "A," or improved as a runner in gym class. Did you celebrate? After a team earns a spot in the Final Four, its players and coaches cut down the nets from the baskets. This traditional celebration shows just how much reaching their goals means to the team. Cutting down the nets is a reward for months and months of hard work.

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