AMASA, MICH. -- The floor that will be used in the Final Four basketball championship was made in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and arrived in Detroit Wednesday. It was assembled at Detroit's Ford Field Thursday.

Connor Sport Court International, located in Amasa, has constructed the floor that will be used for the basketball tournament played in Ford Field on April 4 and 6.

The floor consists of 225 4-by-8-foot panels, weighing about 180 pounds apiece. It is a 21-ton project that was custom made for the Final Four.

The pieces were put together and held in the place by 400 small pins and locked into place by a hammer.

The floor began its 375-mile trek across the state last Saturday and made several stops along the way. Wednesday the Final Four floor caravan stopped in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan.

"You betcha, you betcha eh," said UM Women's Basketball Coach Kevin Borseth, a native of the U.P. "You'd be proud (too). The U.P. isn't known for a lot of things but they are known for their hardwood floors, so this is one of the things we produce. So it's pretty cool."

Borseth and UM Men's Basketball Coach John Beilein stopped by the caravan, and got a chance to sign a special banner traveling with the floor.

"When you envision yourself (there) or you've been there before, it's very hard to look at that," Beilein said, "and you get a little envious."

The floor arrived at Ford Field Wednesday afternoon. Crews will begin putting it together on Thursday, which will take about four hours.

The court is made of maple grown above the 38th Parallel, which according to the company, is supposed to make it extra strong and more resilient. This is the fifth straight year the floor has come from the U.P.

There are 100 employees at Connor Sport Court, a 100,000-square-foot facility.

Connor Sport Court is headquartered in Utah, but has a manufacturing plant in Michigan.

Some teams, such as Michigan State, Kansas, and the Florida Gators, bought the floor after they won the championship game.

Kansas, last year's national champions, paid about $35,000 for their floor, then cut it up and sold small blocks of the floor as a fundraiser. Michigan State bought the floor after winning the title in 2000 and had it installed as their home court at the the Breslin Center in East Lansing.