After two weeks of upsets and unexpected results, the Final Four of the men’s NCAA March Madness tournament are set, and all are traditional powerhouses. In one semifinal, 2-seed Duke will face 8-seed North Carolina, while one-seed Kansas will face 2-seed Villanova in the opposite semifinal.
The Duke Blue Devils will face their fellow Atlantic Coast Conference team and arch-rival, the North Carolina Tar Heels. Duke and North Carolina have met 256 times on the basketball court but have never met in the NCAA tournament.
Duke (32-6) was the No. 2 seed out of the West Region. In the first round, the Blue Devils handily defeated No. 15 Cal-State Fullerton, then ground out tough wins over No. 7 Michigan State, No. 3 Texas Tech, and No. 4 Arkansas.
Duke hopes to send their retiring 42nd-year head coach, Mike Krzyzewski, out on top with a championship. He has led the program to five national titles, most recently in 2015, and he is now making a head-coaching-record 13th appearance in the Final Four.
Duke’s 78-69 win over Arkansas in the Elite Eight made for the most appearances in the Final Four by a head coach of all time, breaking Krzyzewski’s tie with legendary UCLA coach John Wooden.
“It’s an honor. Coach Wooden, if he kept coaching, would probably have 24,” Krzyzewski said after the Arkansas game. “But it’s a heck of a thing. We’ve won a lot in the tournament, and we’ve won a lot of games, but Final Fours are big, obviously, then national championships. That’s what you put banners up for.”
Duke is led by West Region MVP Paolo Banchero, a freshman forward who is projected to be one of the top picks in this year’s NBA Draft. At 6’10”, Banchero is a matchup nightmare as he can score from outside and inside.
North Carolina was the eight-seed out of the East Region. The Tar Heels are making their record 21st appearance in a Final Four and have won six national championships, most recently in 2017.
North Carolina (28-9) is led by first-year head coach Hubert Davis, piloting one of the best mid-season turnarounds in recent history. A few weeks before the unveiling of the brackets, the Tar Heels did not appear to be a team that would make the tournament. However, Davis’ Tar Heels caught fire at the right time, capping the regular season with a win on the road against Duke.
The victory spoiled Coach Krzyzewski’s final home game at Duke’s Cameroon Indoor Stadium. North Carolina will now hope to spoil Krzyzewski’s last season by sending him into retirement with a Final Four loss.
“I don’t think anything can be as crazy as the leadup to that game over in Cameron,” said head coach Davis. “We just keep our eyes straight ahead and we ignore all the noise.”
The Tar Heels dominated No. 9 Marquette in the first round, then upset No. 1-seed Baylor in the second round and No. 4 UCLA in the Sweet 16 before ending the miracle cinderella run of No. 15 Saint Peter’s in the Elite Eight with a dominant 69-49 win. Saint Peter’s made history by going farther than any 15-seed in NCAA tournament history.
The Tar Heels’ 6’10” center Armando Bacot was named the East Region’s MVP. Over the last two games, Bacot has 34 points and 37 rebounds, including 20 points and 22 rebounds against Saint Peter’s.
On the other side of the bracket, the Kansas Jayhawks out of the Big 12 conference are the lone one-seed that survived until the Final Four. The Jayhawks have won three national championships, most recently in 2008, and this will be the program’s 16th appearance in the Final Four and the fourth for their Hall of Fame coach, Bill Self.
The Big 12 champion Jayhawks defeated No. 16 Texas Southern, No. 9 Creighton, and No. 4 Providence to reach the Elite Eight. Kansas (32-6) then cruised into the Final Four by smashing No. 10 Miami 76-50 to win the Midwest Region.
The Jayhawks are highly talented, starting with 6’5″ senior guard Ochai Agbaji, a first-team All-American, the Big 12 Player of the Year, and one of four finalists for the Naismith Player of the Year award. Agbaji is coming off his best game of the NCAA Tournament, scoring 18 points on 8-of-12 shooting against Miami.
“I think these guys have stayed focused,” said coach Self. “They’ve eliminated distractions, for the most part, all year long. And they do play for each other. And so when we play the way that I think that we’re capable of playing, I have total faith that we can play very well.”
Kansas has trailed for just 24 minutes and 11 seconds total in the entire tournament.
The Jayhawks’ opponent will be the South Region champion, the two-seed Villanova Wildcats out of the Big East Conference. Villanova has won three national championships, most recently in 2018, and it is the program’s seventh appearance in the Final Four. The Wildcats also won it all in 2016.
Villanova (30-7) has been on fire, winning 14 of their last 15 games, including the Big East Tournament. Villanova defeated No. 15 Delaware, No. 7 Ohio State, and No. 11 Michigan to reach the Elite Eight. The Wildcats then stifled No. 5 Houston, winning 50-44 to make the Final Four in six seasons for the third time. Head Coach Jay Wright has led the Wildcats since the 2001-02 season.
Villanova’s secret weapon is at the free-throw line, where the team has made 83% of their attempts all season, on pace to break Harvard’s NCAA record of 82.2% set in 1994.
They are led by two senior graduate players, leading scorer Collin Gillespie (15.6 points per game) and leading rebounder Jermaine Samuels (6.5 per game). Both players were on the most recent championship-winning team, so they should not be affected by the bright lights of the Final Four stage.
“You take all those experiences with you, and you try to emulate them and be them, and do the things they do and put the work in like they put in and just pray that it works out for you,” Samuels said.
Both semifinals for the Final Four and the title game will take place in New Orleans.
