Saturday will feature four men”s college basketball teams playing in one of the unlikeliest sets of Final Four matchups ever (so unlikely that ESPN reports only two brackets, out of more than 5.9 million posted to its website, correctly picked the Final Four).
In fact, only 1,093 brackets correctly selected three of the four teams. Equally as astounding, just 2.1 percent of brackets had two teams and 27.6 percent had one team (my bracket fell in that category).
Doing the math shows that 70.3 percent of ESPN-filed brackets did not select a single Final Four team to make it that far.
Suffices to say, nobody saw the Final Four matchups of Connecticut v. Kentucky and Butler v. Virginia Commonwealth coming.
ESPN reports only 6.9 percent of brackets gave each team a chance after Round 2; all others had one or more losing before the Round of 32 (which is where I fell, having Butler losing in Round 2 and VCU losing its Round 1 play-in game).
However, after the first two weekends of the NCAA Tournament, it”s clear that all four teams deserve to be in Houston on Saturday.
The Kentucky Wildcats kind of came out of nowhere to win the hardest tournament region as a No. 4-seed, using surprisingly consistent 3-point shooting and tough defense to defeat stalwarts like North Carolina and Ohio State (my predicted champion).
UConn is the hottest team at this point in the tournament, having completed a five-game run through the Big East tourney, and then successfully navigating tough games against San Diego State and Arizona in the NCAA. The Huskies were my only correct Final Four pick.
A lot more of us should have seen the No. 8-seed Butler Bulldogs coming. The majority of this season”s players were on last year”s team that came within a couple of inches of a national title. Butler”s 2011 region was weak, but it was hard to imagine they could win each game – but the team persevered in every hard-fought contest.
The school just about nobody (only 0.1 percent of ESPN brackets) saw coming was the No. 11-seed VCU. The Rams” run was the most unexpected in NCAA Tournament history, considering they finished fourth in the Colonial Athletic Association regular season and barely qualified in the first year of the 68-team format.
But once that ball got tipped in the tournament, no team has dominated as consistently as VCU, which has simply rammed through higher-ranked opponents.
It”s going to be a fun final weekend culminating in the crowning of a surprising champion. Rather than try to pick the winner (because I”d probably fail as badly as most of us have this entire tournament), I”ll throw out a few thoughts for your consideration:
– For the second year in a row, the previous year”s national runner-up returned to the Final Four (Michigan State lost to Butler in the Final Four last season).
– Kentucky head coach John Calipari will be the second person to have coached three different schools in the Final Four. However, the NCAA vacated his 1996 appearance with Massachusetts (for Marcus Camby receiving improper benefits from agents) and his 2008 appearance with Memphis (for Derrick Rose”s allegedly falsified SAT scores).
– So technically, Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun will be the only coach entering Saturday having already appeared in multiple Final Fours (not to mention having won two National Championships).
– The lowest seed to win it all since regional seeding began in 1979 was No. 8-seed Villanova in 1985.
– Only twice since the NCAA has admitted 64 teams or more has a No. 11-seed made the Final Four: 1986 Louisiana State and 2006 George Mason. Both lost in the Final Four (to the eventual champion).
Enjoy both games Saturday and be ready to congratulate an unexpected champion come Monday.
Jeremy Walsh is a staff reporter for Lake County Publishing. He can be reached at 263-5636 ext. 37 or jwalsh@record-bee.com.
