ATLANTA - The Road Ends Here - so proclaims the huge banner on one of the several faces of the Georgia Dome, and what a miserable finish if it is true.

To imagine that there is nothing beyond this littered mishmash of Peachtree disorder and looping civic quirks is to just give up the journey.

If March Madness has to conclude somewhere, it might as well be here, where the spring blooming pollen is so thick, it can be passed off as breakfast grits.

Bite into any Southern dish at your own risk and nod at the native tongue as if it shares your own. The thing about the South is that you are never alone. You are always you all.

Basketball ranks in the social alertness of the hosting population somewhere after NASCAR and UFO sightings, but you take them at their word that they all are happy to have us'ins and that the added police presence on downtown streets is just to give directions to wandering aliens.

Still, the walk across the sun-washed Centennial Olympic Park brings back the night a homemade terrorist joined in the games of peace and joy.

No danger. No matter. Here it is and here we are, and what's next is exactly what was supposed to be next.

It was going to be a Trademark Final Four after the first week. No off-brands to confuse events. No George Masons to clutter things.

Cinderella's coach got a flat. Only the Ugly Stepsisters made it to the Big Dance.

UCLA. Georgetown. Florida. Ohio State. Two 2s and two 1s, and the 1s that did not make it, Kansas and North Carolina, were shaky enough to be 1 1/2s.

This is a Final Four made from chalk. These are all designer labels, nothing off the rack. The Little Engine That Could is a Lexus.

Three of the teams were ranked No. 1 for some period of the season. Every team has won a national championship. There might not be enough blue ribbon to tie around this one.

It could have more pedigree if North Carolina had managed to whip Georgetown, as the Tar Heels should have, unaccountably making only one of their last 23 shots, but even the Hoyas bring the echoes of glories gone with a John Thompson coaching and a Patrick Ewing playing.

UCLA has been to more Final Fours than Wilson, the official ball. This bunch together has Final Four'ed 36 times and Final One'd 14, with Florida returning with last year's trophy in its luggage.

Quite a collection of bullies these, justifying their own ambition and the wisdom of the selection committee.

Duke or Kentucky, or both, could fit with this company, and they might have if Mike Krzyzewski had not been too preoccupied with the national team to give his Blue Devils the usual attention and Tubby Smith was not looking beyond Lexington for peace and sanity, such as he shall find up in Minnesota.

This one is drawn entirely within the lines. The final brackets required neither erasers nor expletives.

This whole March Madness thing started with George Mason's great last-season example, fresh and phony, as if miracles have reunions.

Oregon was the last team that resembled Cinderella, and had Oregon withstood the strutting long drawers from Gainesville, it would have brought the ugliest uniforms to the Final Four since the Stanford tree.

As is, Joakim Noah's hair will have to pass for unsightly shrubbery.

This was not a year for surprises. Wonder had a short shelf life. Upsets were not as startling as they were temporary. Winthrop got to celebrate knocking off Notre Dame for less time than it takes to look up Winthrop on the map.

Xavier and Tennessee took turns playing just well enough to barely lose to the Buckeyes, and Virginia Commonwealth will always have the first-round dismissal of Duke.

What this Final Four does not have is the best player in the country - Texas freshman Kevin Durant - but Ohio State's Greg Oden is more coveted and UCLA's Arron Afflalo is worth watching.

There is not a lunatic among the Final Four coaches, though the young John Thompson III can make the Energizer Bunny look like a window dummy.

As a bonus, this Final Four offers the revenge of Brutus Buckeye over Alley Gator, or whatever that fake lizard is called in Gainesville.

Ohio State - disclaimer here, my old school - was trounced without mercy by Florida in college football's championship game.

I'll take the Buckeyes to beat the Gators in the final here, ending the Madness with some order and more than a little bit of justice.

lincicomeb@RockyMountainNews.com

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