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Upper Peninsula forest provides wood for Final Four courts

Wood harvested from forestland in Michigan's Upper Peninsula is being used to make the court floorings for college basketball's Final Four matchups. Connor Sports manufactured the flooring at its plant in the village of Amasa in Iron County. 

The company harvested the timber from 35 acres (14.1 hectares) of sugar maples in the Two Hearted River Forest Reserve owned by The Nature Conservancy. Connor says it used sustainable forestry practices for the harvest, basing its selection of trees for removal on improving the forest's health as well as economic benefit.

The men's basketball Final Four will take place in Glendale, Arizona, while the women's finals will be in Dallas. The company says it takes about six hours to install the hundreds of wood panels that make up the court flooring.

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