LOS ANGELES � Standing together on the massive Kodak Theatre stage, the final two �So You Think You Can Dance� contestants had one thing in common.

�I told Brandon (Bryant), 'No matter what, Miami wins,'� Jeanine Mason said.
She promptly won the $250,000 top prize Thursday; he finished second. Both are from Miami; so is Janette Manrera, who finished in the top eight and was described by producer-judge Nigel Lythgoe as the season's best dancer.
Why the Miami dance power? You could credit the salsa spirit and maybe the weather. �The heat makes everyone want to dance,� Bryant said.
Or you could credit the ethnic rhythms. Despite her surname � �I'll have to ask my grandparents about that,� she said � Mason is first-generation Cuban-American.
Sent to dance school at age 3, she went along with it for a few years. At 7, she wavered. �I'd come home crying that I didn't want to do it anymore,� she said.
A couple years later, she �met two of the most amazing teachers in the world,� Mason, now 18, said.
All that training combined with a compact (5-foot-4) and athletic body and a show-business spirit. �She's such a crazy person,� Kayla Radomski, who finished fourth, said approvingly. �She's very open. She's loud.�
Mason isn't sure where she got that trait. �I watched a lot of Disney movies as a kid,� she said.
She's accustomed to being noticed. The exception came in the early �Dance� weeks. �Jeanine was under everyone's radar,� Lythgoe said.
Mason barely made it there. �I was the last person to audition in Miami, she said.
She drew little attention during the Las Vegas round or during the early weeks in Los Angeles. �She was never the biggest vote-getter,� said Adam Shankman, a key guest judge. �That didn't start until the last two or three weeks.�
Others drew attention early. Judges raved about the raw skill of Radomski. 18, and the charisma and work ethic of Evan Kasprzak, 22, who finished third; they had mixed feelings about Bryant, 20.
By the Las Vegas round, many judges were big on Bryant. Mia Michaels, who was choreographing a number there, disagreed.
�It was a little bit of the not-so-professional work quality about him that (upset) me,� Michaels recalled.
Looking back on that now, Bryant said he simply lacked confidence, because he was rejected in the Las Vegas round a year earlier. �When I went to Vegas this time, I really wasn't sure of myself.�
His confidence kept growing and he reached the final four. That's when he drew a break � the final number in the final performance show was a powerful duet with Mason, backed by a thunder-and-lightning mix of drumbeats and red lights.
Shankman's reaction was immediate. �I turned to Mary (fellow judge Mary Murphy) and said, 'That could have won them the show.'�
Prior to that, judges had been lukewarm about several of the numbers. They had come down harshly on Kazprzak, with the studio audience disagreeing. �I've never had anything like 3,000 people chanting my name,� he said.
He reached the final three, before being ousted, leaving the final two. Bryant recently moved to Salt Lake City; Monroe expects to enroll soon in UCLA. Both, however, have spent most of their lives in Miami, which is suddenly TV's dance capital.