Three things wrong with this Final Four: Location, location, location

DETROIT -- This Final Four wasn't perfect.

It would be incredibly difficult to argue otherwise.

Sprawling Detroit isn't conducive to hosting a Final Four. (US Presswire)

But I don't see any point in ripping Detroit as a city, because Detroit as a city was fine in general -- although there was that time late Friday night when a bum threw a bottle at CBSSports.com's Jason Horowitz for no apparent reason. When Jason turned and looked, the bum said simply, "That's how we roll in Detroit!" What's more, Jason is from Detroit. So you can understand his disappointment ... and lack of surprise.

My disappointment?

It's not in Detroit as a city.

It's in Detroit as a Final Four location.

I'll number my disappointments ... one, two and three.

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1. The weather: I woke up Monday and Tuesday morning, looked out my window on the 32nd floor of the Marriott at the Renaissance Center and saw snow. Real-life, white snow. Understand, I'm a man who once (or twice) wore flip-flops to a national title game, so I'm not down with snow. Snow at the Final Four should be an NCAA violation, warm weather a must. As I type, it's still snowing. That's not proper.

2. The size of the area: Detroit is a big, sprawling city, and that's not a positive for a Final Four. In fact, it's a negative, because outside of the games, this event is really about networking, and it's hard to network when half the media and coaches are in Canada, the other half in Michigan.

The following is an actual phone conversation with a coach Friday night:

Me: Where are you?

Coach: Just got to Canada.

Me: You headed back this way? We're going to the adidas party.

Coach: I can't cross the border again. It just took us 45 minutes to get through.

Me: OK. Well, text me if you return to the continental United States.

And that's how it was all week, which is why the Final Four is best in New Orleans, Indianapolis, San Antonio or some other place where the hotels, bars and restaurants are within a one-mile radius of each other. A perfect Final Four does not require a rental car or a taxi ride. This was not that kind of Final Four.

3. Early last calls: You cannot buy a drink in Detroit after 2 a.m., even in the casinos, which is ridiculous. Have you ever tried being in a casino past 2 a.m. without a drink? It's miserable, I tell you. Just awful. So before we return our sport's biggest event to this city, the laws must be changed to allow bars to stay open late and casinos to serve drinks 24 hours a day. Otherwise, what's the point?

So no, this Final Four wasn't perfect.

The weather was bad, the alcohol laws were lame, and at any give time half the people involved with this event were in a totally different country than the other half. Even worse, I forgot my passport. So I was trapped in America for six days, limited to gazing out my window across the Detroit River and wondering what kind of silliness was happening at Caesar's Palace in Windsor, Ontario, where most of the coaches were staying.

From my view, it looked appealing.

Appealing, but cold.