An eight that is by default elite
The NCAA men's tournmanet is a weird bunch and it seems hard to handicap
With the school I hav a personal interest in rooting for, UCLA, out of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, I can now look at the eight teams left and say “Huh. How did we end up with this group?”
The NCAA started seeding the tournament in 1979 and this is the first time that no one #1 seeds are left this far into the tournament. In that first year of seeding, the number ones were North Carolina (East), Notre Dame (Mideast), Indiana State (Midwest), and UCLA (West). It had two historically good teams (UNC and UCLA) as top seeds, an undefeated team with the best player in the country (Indiana State), and Notre Dame, which the NCAA thought was actually better than the eventual national champion, Michigan State.
In this year’s tournament, there is just one team left playing that has won any championships before: Connecticut, which has four. The Huskies play Gonzaga, which has at least played for a championship, losing in 2017 to North Carolina and in 2021 to Baylor.1 So Saturday’s West Regional final in Las Vegas will be about as high profile as it will get this weekend and the only guarantee that one of the Final Four teams won’t make you shake your head and wonder what happened.
The other game on Saturday is the East Regional final in New York City between Kansas State and Florida Atlantic. Kansas State last played in a Final Four in 1964, losing to UCLA in the semis. And the Wildcats played Kentucky in all-Wildcat final in 1951, which Kentucky won.2 My favorite moment of watching Kansas State came in 1981 when the Wildcats upset #1 seed Oregon State on the opening weekend on a last second shot by Rolando Blackman. And the Wildcats had uniforms that are no longer in use. (See picture below) That was the third of three buzzer beaters on one day, March 14. Earlier in the day, St. Joseph’s upset DePaul 49-47 on a last second layup and a bit later Arkansas beat Lousville 73-72 on a halfcourt shot by U.S. Reed.
The Owls of Florida Atlantic University are K State’s opponent. The Owls won Conference USA and are 34-3, but are just a #9 seed. The Owls’ basketball history is not a glorious one. Prior to this season, they had appeared in the NCAA tournament, just once, back in 2002 and lost to Alabama. They also appeared in one NIT3 and lost in the first round (to Miami), one CBI4 and lost in the first round (to Northern Colorado), and one Collegeinsider.com Tournament5 and lost in the first round (to Charleston Southern).
Florida Atlantic got past Memphis by one point in the first round. Then, the Owls caught a break because instead of top seed Purdue, they got 16 seed Fairleigh Dickinson. The Owls didn’t need as much luck to beat four seed Tennessee in the Sweet Sixteen, dominating the Vols in the second half.
More importantly, research has turned up that the team’s nickname is well-earned as the Boca Raton area does have numerous owls living in it. I am doubtful that any actutal wildcats roam the streets of Manhattan, Kansas.
On Sunday, there will be more weird matchups. In the South Region, Fifth Seed San Diego State will play Sixth Seed Creighton in Louisville at the KFC Yum! Center. (Yes, you need to use the exclamation point.)
San Diego State played in the first college basketball game I ever saw in person. My brother took me to Pauley Pavilion on December 16, 1978 to watch UCLA beat San Diego State 93-79. SDSU’s upset of Alabama, probably college basketball’s “feel bad” team of the year, was welcomed by a lot of fans who realized that their cognitive dissonance about Alabama and Brandon Miller. could only be taken so far.
There have been a lot of great players to come out of San Diego State. For example, there has been Kawhi Leonard. And Michael Cage. And Tony Gwynn. I have now ran out of names I recognize among team leaders in various stats.
And what about Creighton? I was first exposed to Creighton in the sixth grade, when there was a story about the school’s founder, Edward Creighton, in one of our textbook’s. Sadly, I remember no details of the story. I did know that it ended up with the Creighton family. becoming really wealthy, which is how they could end up with a big Jesuit University in Omaha named for them.
The Bluejays (one word please) have only played in the Elite Eight once. And that was in 1941, the third year of the tournament. And in 1941, only eight teams made the tournament. The Bluejays lost their first game to Washington State, but won a consolation game over Wyoming.6
Despite playing in Nebraska, Creighton is in the Big East, mostly because it’s a prominent Catholic school, which the Big East likes. (Butler and UConn are the only members of the Big East that aren’t Catholic.) Creighton frequently makes the NCAA tournament (this is their 24th appearance), but usually they are done on the first weekend. Nevertheless, either San Diego State or Creighton will be heading to Houston. Go figure.
The fourth regional matches #5 seed Miami, which upset top seed Houston, against #2 seed Texas in Kansas City.
Texas has an interim coach, Rodney Terry, who replaced Chris Beard, who was dismissed after domestic abuse charges were filed against him.7 Texas made it to the Final Four in 1947, when they lost to archrival Oklahoma, and again in 2003 when they lost to Syracuse, who was not their archrival, but had Carmelo Anthony on it.
Facing Texas will be Miami, making its second straight Elite Eight appearance, and again against a Big 12 team. Last year, Miami was beaten in this round by Kansas. Miami didn’t even field a team from 1971 though 1985 (mostly because no one cared about the sport at the time and the school had no good place to play) and didn’t win an NCAA tournament game until 1999. Miami is the lone representative left from the ACC. Miami’s coach, Jim Larrañaga, has been to a Final Four with George Mason in 2006 and is also the preeminent Basque-American college basketball coach in the country.
Both Miami basketball teams will be playing for Final Four spots. On Sunday, the Miami women, a #9 seed, will be playing #3 seed LSU in Greenville, South Carolina. (That’s the Greenville 2 region as their are just two cities being used for the four regional finals in the women’s tournament. The other two are in Seattle.)
When the NCAA men’s championship game is played on April 3, one of the teams in it will either be San Diego State, Creighton, Miami, or Texas. Which will seem very odd. And there will likely be numerous words spilled by the college basketball media about how bad television ratings will be without the pull of teams like Kentucky or Duke or North Carolina.
The UConn-Gonzaga matchup precludes the chance of the Final Four consisting of four teams that have never made it that far before. That hasn’t happened since 1947 (Holy Cross, Texas, Oklahoma, and CCNY).
Everybody likes to root for underdogs. Or see some “new blood” competing for a championship in a sport. That is, until it actually happens, then it’s terrible. But if April 3 matches up a team from Boca Raton against a team from Omaha, well that’s just what could happen when you give 68 teams a relatively equal chance of winning the championship every year. Enjoy the chaos. It will be back to being Kansas versus Kentucky again for the final soon enough. 8
And you won’t have to listen to Jim Nantz next year either.
The loss to Baylor was Gonzaga’s only loss of the season.
Kentucky lost the other NCAA final between teams with the same nickname, falling to the Arizona Wildcats in the 1997 final.
The final four of that tournament is set with North Texas playing Wisconsin and Utah Valley playing Alabama Birmingham. The games will be played in Las Vegas.
This year’s version was won by Charlotte.
Don’t look for this any more, it’s gone.
Until the 1970s, the NCAA played consolation games before regional finals, similar to the late, lamented third place game in the Final Four.
The charges have destroyed Beard’s career so much that he has already been hired to coach Ole Miss next year.
Also, the Elite Eight has two teams from the Big 12 (Texas and Kansas State), two from the Big East (UConn and Creighton), and one ACC team (Miami). The other three are West Coast, Mountain West, and Conference USA.
I certainly remember going to the UCLA game with you in 1978, but I could not have told you who the Bruins had played.