In this first look at the 2015 Final Four, a natural question to ask at the outset is, “What does this foursome tell us about the NCAA tournament and any trends we should be aware of in postseason college basketball?”
On several levels, the best and most reasonable answer is… nothing that can be carried into the 2015-2016 season.
In order to get to that point, though — realizing that the results of the 2015 NCAA Tournament paint a murky picture rather than a clear one — these teams’ profiles and paths need to be examined. Here is a general overview of what emerges when you scrutinize Michigan State, Duke, Wisconsin, and Kentucky — what they did, how they did it, and under what circumstances?
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Each year, students of both basketball and bracketology monitor the nuances of each Final Four team’s run, looking for details that can lend definition to future editions of March Madness. When you go over the paths our four esteemed college basketball teams traveled to get to Indianapolis, it becomes very hard to draw firm and sweeping conclusions about the nature of the 2015 NCAA Tournament in a larger postseason context.
Let’s start with this question: Did teams that won their conference tournaments enjoy a pronounced advantage — or suffer a noticeable disadvantage — on the Road To The Final Four? This grouping splits that answer down the middle. Michigan State and Duke did not win conference tournaments, Wisconsin and Kentucky did. Michigan State did play its conference tournament final on a Sunday, but it received a Friday-Sunday opening-weekend pod (as all teams should if they play a conference tournament game on a Sunday). Kentucky played on a Sunday and received a Thursday-Saturday pod, but the Wildcats are — as you might have noticed — good enough to overcome quite a lot of tests. Moreover, the SEC tournament semifinals (against a shorthanded Auburn team) afforded Kentucky the ability to not overextend its players on that weekend in Nashville.
All in all, the Big Ten Conference tournament can reasonably be seen as an event which sharpened and polished Michigan State in advance of the NCAA tournament. The ACC tournament was an event in which Duke obviously didn’t need to go deep; the Blue Devils looked physically fresh after losing relatively early in the event, which — by the way — finished on a Saturday this season, giving losing teams an extra day to regroup before the NCAAs. Duke and Mike Krzyzewski used that extra day quite well.
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Next question: Is there a clear trend in representation at the 2015 Final Four in terms of conference champions, for better or worse? No. Michigan State and Duke failed to win both the regular season and tournament versions of their conference championships, while Wisconsin and Kentucky both pulled off the double.
This is where the discussion gets interesting… and becomes that much less of an indicator of any strong generalized trends in postseason college basketball.
If you look at the 2015 Final Four in comparison with the 2014 version, it becomes particularly easy to see that there’s no easy answer in terms of identifying clear patterns beyond those of specific teams. What is meant by this statement? The explanation won’t be hard to understand.
Wisconsin and Kentucky have, of course, repeated as Final Four participants. They will once again meet in a national semifinal. Last year, they both made the Final Four without having won either their regular season conference championships or their conference tournaments. This year, they’re in the Final Four on the opposite side of the tracks. Last year’s other Final Four semifinal, Connecticut versus Florida, featured one team that won nothing in its conference (the Huskies) versus a team that won the regular season-tournament double (the Gators).
Want to find more clear connections between 2014 and 2015 in the attempt to unearth specific bracket trends? You have to look in the right places, because if you don’t, you’ll only encounter more uncertainties.
Last year’s collection of seeds at the Final Four was 1, 2, 7, and 8. This year, it’s three top seeds and a 7 seed. Last year, the team which entered the NCAAs with an unbeaten record (Wichita State) was knocked out in the round of 32 in a game marked by tremendous perimeter shooting. This year, the unbeaten team played a round of 32 game marked by a pronounced dearth of perimeter shooting. (Kentucky-Cincinnati was a classic rock fight for much of the day in Louisville.) Obviously, that unbeaten team is still unbeaten, as Kentucky stands two wins away from a landmark 40-0 achievement.
Do bracket paths matter? Duke would suggest that the path does matter. The Blue Devils’ San Diego State-Utah-Gonzaga sequence was as good a succession of opponents as a top seed could have hoped for. Michigan State’s march through Virginia, Oklahoma, and an in-form Louisville team would offer reason to say that the bracket path means less than playing your best at the right time, matchups be damned.
Wisconsin faced tricky opponents in Oregon and North Carolina but prevailed before flourishing in the Elite Eight. Kentucky faced clearly inferior opponents in Cincinnati and West Virginia before struggling in the Elite Eight (yet winning anyway). Trends? Inconclusive.
Consider this point, too: Even when you find some similarities between this year’s tournament and last year’s tournament, there are differences within those similarities.
For instance, this is not just the second straight year with a Wisconsin-Kentucky semifinal, despite those teams owning profiles very different in terms of conference championships. This is also the second straight year in which the 7 seed has emerged as the East Regional champion, having beaten a 2 seed, a 3 seed, and a 4 seed in consecutive rounds to win the regional in New York State (Madison Square Garden in 2014, Syracuse in 2015). What makes this year’s instance different from 2014 is that Michigan State did not have a natural crowd advantage in Syracuse, whereas 2014 UConn was playing virtual home games in MSG. Michigan State was playing outside its region but still made the Final Four. UConn benefited from home-region treatment in the bracketing of last year’s tournament.
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If you want to find a few clear answers to your bracket analysis questions, they emerge from identifications of specific teams, not these larger considerations of how teams fare after winning conference tournaments (or not) or being a regular season conference champion (or not).
Similarity number one: Wisconsin beat Arizona in the West Regional final for the second straight year. The Badgers clearly matched up well with the Wildcats, and Arizona was bitterly unlucky to have Wisconsin once again sent to the West.
Similarity number two: The 7 seed emerging from the East (after beating a 4 in the regional final) has once again been a product of an East bracket with Villanova and Virginia as the top two seeds. If there’s anything to perhaps carry into next year’s tournament, it’s the notion that Villanova and Virginia will have a lot to prove. You shouldn’t necessarily be ready to bet against the Wildcats and Cavaliers, but you will need to see new dimensions from those teams during the regular season, indicators that they can address the deficiencies that kept them home again in 2015.
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The 2015 Final Four gives us coaching heavyweights and brand-name power. Yet, in relationship to annual March questions and the 2014 Final Four’s identity, this Four-some in Indianapolis provides uncertainty more than clarity. That’s not a sexy answer, but it’s the one which makes the most sense.
