Did you know that there are eight active players in the NBA who once were named the Final Four Most Outstanding Player in the U.S. NCAA collegiate men?s basketball tournament?

They are Minnesota Timberwolves? Wayne Ellington (North Carolina, 2009), Miami Heat?s Mario Chalmers (Kansas, 2008), Dallas Mavericks? Corey Brewer (Florida, 2007), Chicago Bulls? Joakim Noah (Florida, 2006), New Orleans Hornets? Emeka Okafor (Connecticut, 2004), New York Knicks? Carmelo Anthony (Syracuse, 2003), Memphis Grizzlies? Shane Battier (Duke, 2001), and Detroit Pistons? Richard Hamilton (Connecticut, 1999).

Brewer (formerly of Minnesota) and Anthony (formerly of Denver) opened the 2010-11 NBA campaign with different clubs, though.

Ellington, Chalmers, Brewer, Noah, Okafor, Anthony, Battier and Hamilton all played for an NCAA title team when they were voted the Final Four MOP.

Only Hamilton went on to become a member of an NBA championship unit. He starred for the Detroit Pistons when the Motor City club upset the Los Angeles Lakers, 4-1, in the 2004 Finals to capture the NBA crown.

That Pistons squad was mentored by Larry Brown, the only coach ever to win an NBA title and an NCAA championship.

Brown piloted the University of Kansas Jayhawks to the NCAA crown in 1988.

Kansas defeated Oklahoma, 83-79, in the 1988 NCAA championship game behind future NBA player Danny Manning, who also was named the Final Four MOP that year.

Keith Smart, a former import in the Philippine Basketball Association (1989, San Miguel Beer), is the only active NBA head coach to win NCAA Final Four MOP honors.

Smart scored the game-winning jumper in lifting the Indiana Hoosiers (under coach Bobby Knight) to a 74-73 victory over the Syracuse Orangemen (now simply monikered Orange) in the 1987 NCAA titular match.