Dance Lessons: Go big ... or go home

How often have you heard the clichés? "Defense wins championships." "Live by the 3, die by the 3." But are they truth or myth? Dance Lessons looks at NCAA tournaments past to see whether these truisms check out, and examine which teams they help and hurt in 2010.

In a game with a 10-foot basket, anyone knows a dominant big man is important. And if you grew up with David Robinson, Hakeem Olajuwon and Patrick Ewing, this adage has been branded into your basketball brain: Big men win championships.

But saying you need a dominant big man is like saying you need a cooler built into your recliner; it makes life better, but it's not a necessity.

Dominant big men are luxuries. And that's because they are rare. In fact, some years, The Associated Press doesn't vote a single center onto any of its three All-America teams. When a center does get honors -- especially on the first or second team -- it signals he is a great collegiate big man.

So using that criteria, we've found the "dominant big men" of the past decade. And it turns out these rare assets really do carry their teams deep into the Dance.

To see how dominant big men have affected the tournament in the recent past and see which teams are helped and hurt by this argument this season, you must be an ESPN Insider.

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