The Final Four

by George Barany and Brent Hartzell

This "mid-week level" puzzle (15x16) was released just as basketball junkies nationwide were settling in for the 2013 edition of one of the great days in the annals of couch potato-dom, and comes in the optimistic glow that young Coach Pitino will be able to reverse the situation described in Marooned and Galled, our puzzle from a week ago. [P.S. offered the morning of April 9, 2013: would it be fair to say that the present puzzle predicted the tournament's outcome by its placement of the central entry?]

Click here to view or download the puzzle in PDF format; here to download it as a puz file; here to download it as an ipuz file [requires the free Puzzazz app to solve]; here to solve the puzzle interactively (thanks to Jim Horne); here for the solution. We thank Martin Herbach for test-solving and helpful suggestions.

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More puzzles here (all), here (current events), here (sports), and here (tributes).

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