Much to my chagrin it has been since 1966 that North Carolina, UConn and UCLA will not be in the NCAA Tournament at the same time. In that year a small Texas Western (now UTEP) team won the Championship in one of the most controversial games in NCAA history.
Texas Western, coached by Don Haskins, won the 1966 national title with a 72–65 victory over an Adolph Rupp coached Kentucky squad. Coach Haskins started five black players for the first time in NCAA Championship history. At the same time Adolph Rupp a legend in NCAA basketball did not believe in having black players on his team.
This year in the NCAA basketball tourney we have more parody than we have had in recent memory and while the big schools who have owned the headlines are out it leaves us with schools such as Butler, BYU, Siena, Northern Iowa and so on to take the plunge into basketball immortality.
Is this the year when we get another George Mason in the Final Four? Or is there an opportunity to get 2 mid-majors in the championship game? The answer is YES! There very well could be a team like UTEP in the Final Four. That’s right! Coming out of Conference USA where Memphis has owned it the last 5 years they went 15-1 and are on their way to the dance to maybe shock the world once again.
The Jay Bilas’s of the world says that there is no parody this year. OK, we do still have Kansas, Kentucky, Duke, and Syracuse at the top. But what about New Mexico in the Top 10, Butler #12, and Gonzaga and Kansas St bouncing around the top 10 as well?
If you break it down, Kentucky is relying on three freshman and a senior to carry them and all the pundits say that they are the team out the top 4 that could fail first. Duke is relying on 3-pt shooting and when they run into a team that is faster, quicker and bigger underneath they will get humbled. Kansas is solid and Syracuse has its moments of forgetting that you can be beat in any game, case and point, LeMoyne at home in an exhibition game and twice to Louisville who may not make the field of 64.
So, who will fill out the Final Four along with Kansas? Remember, the only time all the top seeds made the Final Four was 2 years ago so don’t count on it happening again for a while.