0 comments by Matt Zemek on 4/1/2016
The Villanova Wildcats and the Oklahoma Sooners both arrive at the championship-making stage of the 2015-2016 college basketball season at a point in basketball history when the Golden State Warriors and the Splash Brothers are redefining the pro game. Jump shooting — 3-point jump shooting, to be precise — is in. How’s it GOINK, Phil […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
On Selection Sunday, Jim Boeheim received a gift from the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee. He made very good use of it, leading the Syracuse Orange to the 2016 Final Four this weekend in Houston. Boeheim also turned his own gift into a present for the very coach he’ll face in Saturday’s second national […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 3/31/2016
Cole Field House, on the campus of the University of Maryland in College Park, deserves a moment — more precisely, a moment beyond its most famous moment. Wednesday night, some Americans watched ESPN’s rebroadcast of the 1966 NCAA national championship game in which Texas Western’s all-black starting five beat Kentucky’s all-white team, forever changing college […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 3/30/2016
The Final Four is its own inherent reward — for Lon Kruger and anyone else who is able to reach college basketball’s biggest weekend as a participant, not a spectator. Lon Kruger wasn’t concerned with making the Final Four again, 22 years after his first visit. He was focused on making sure Buddy Hield and […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
Has it been 20 full years since the Final Four was last played in a conventional arena? Does it feel longer or shorter since that moment passed through our lives? The American sports fan has become so conditioned to expect a Final Four in a huge football dome that the days of “normal” Final Fours […]
Kelsey Plum and the Huskies cheer their berth into the Final Four. Washington and Stanford played in the Lexington Regional Final Sunday, March 27, 2016. (Dean Rutz / The Seattle Times)
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 3/29/2016
Women’s college basketball will always have a relatively difficult time piercing the national sports news cycle during the men’s NCAA tournament. That’s not a criticism, that’s reality. For one thing, the first night of the women’s Sweet 16 is held on the second night of the men’s Sweet 16. The scheduling change for the women […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 3/28/2016
The North Carolina Tar Heels won the East Region, offering the least surprising final outcome of any of the four regions. Oklahoma would likely occupy second place among the four regional champions in terms of meeting the bracket expectations of most fans and pundits, but Carolina clearly rates first. Indiana had no answer for UNC’s […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
Sweet Jesus — what else is there to say about the Midwest Region after THAT? What’s THAT? Sunday, of course. Easter witnessed a resurrection almost as improbable as Texas A&M’s Palm Sunday escape from Northern Iowa the week before — and in a certain sense, Syracuse’s surge past Virginia was more shocking to the senses. […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
The practice of re-seeding the Final Four is not being actively discussed. It’s not likely to happen at any point in the near or moderately distant future. We all have our opinions on the matter, but this won’t be an editorial urging one position over another. Simply sit back and contemplate how different the Final […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
We’ve looked at Final Four appearances solely through the lens of the SEC, but what about the Power 5 conferences in general? The bluebloods and old-money powers are schools you know about. What can be said of the Power 5 schools at the other end of the spectrum? Not a single Final Four school this […]
Hugh Durham coaching Georgia at the 1983 Final Four in Albuquerque.
0 comments by Matt Zemek
See that man in the cover image? That’s Hugh Durham, selected for induction into the College Basketball Hall of Fame last week. We assessed his career, noting one specific statistic which separates him from all his brothers — past and present — in the coaching fraternity. Bundled inside that statistic (go read the piece) is […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
The Final Four is set, with seeds 2, 2, 10 and 1 headed for Houston. The paths of the various regions offer cause for an update of seeding histories in the Big Dance. Consider this a trip through the NCAA tournament garden over time… The West Region once again featured a 2 seed in the […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 3/27/2016
The West Region, won by Oklahoma over Oregon in Saturday’s final, offered an enduring reminder of a central NCAA tournament bracket truth: A well-placed 2 seed often trumps a 1 seed. A review of the final appears here. Oklahoma could have been a 2 seed in the Midwest with Virginia. It could have been a […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek
The South Region witnessed a ferocious Elite Eight game on Saturday, as Villanova subdued Kansas in a street fight to make the second Final Four of the Jay Wright era. Instant reaction at partner site The Comeback can be found here. An on-site report by Michael Grant of The Comeback can be found here. Those two pieces […]
0 comments by Matt Zemek on 3/26/2016
After Thursday’s utter absence of drama, Friday’s heavyweights had to be on guard in the Sweet 16. No problem, said Virginia and North Carolina. The Cavaliers and Tar Heels moved within one step of a 1981 Final Four national semifinal reunion. Meanwhile, Notre Dame and Syracuse both scored surprising victories against the run of play […]
