Top: Visiting the Michigan-made NCAA Final Four floor during its St. Ignace stop are (from left) Mayor Paul Grondin, John Ellis, Joe Fullerton, Bradley Gustafson, Caleb Leveille, Travis Salter, Sam Fullerton, City Manager Eric Dodson, and Michelle Walk. (Photograph courtesy of Emily Fullerton) The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Men's Final Four will have a true Michigan flavor for the semifinals Saturday, April 4, and the championship game Monday, April 6. Ford Field in Detroit will host the three games on a floor made in the Upper Peninsula by Connor Sports Flooring in Amasa, north of Crystal Falls, from hard maple provided by Timber Products in Munising.

Connor Sports Flooring Corporation is a subsidiary of Connor Sports Court International of Salt Lake City, Utah, and the company's only hardwood production is at Amasa, which opened in 1985 and employees nearly 100 Michigan residents.

The company made the floor for the 2009 NCAA Women's Final Four in St. Louis, Missouri, and constructed floors for the four men's regional sites that will be played in Indianapolis, Boston, Memphis, and Glendale.

Inset: The truckload of flooring for the NCAA Men's Final Four made a stop at Bridge View Park on the north end of the Mackinac Bridge Saturday, March 21, before heading south for stops in Saginaw, Grand Rapids, Lansing, Ann Arbor, and the final destination at Ford Field in Detroit. The lumber was trucked from Munising to Amasa and placed into a kiln to dry for 10 to 14 days before being manufactured into a 100,000-square-foot floor comprised of 225 four-foot-by-eight-foot sections. To build the floor, 6,720 square feet of wood was used.

Roehl Transportation ot Marshfield, Wisconsin, left Munising Saturday, March 21, and made stops in Munising, St. Ignace, Saginaw, Grand Rapids, Lansing, and Ann Arbor before the final stop at Ford Field in Detroit Wednesday, March 25.

The NCAA Final Four brings together the four semi-finalists from the field of 65 for the final two days of college hoops.