FINAL FOUR MARCH MADNESS REPORT
A Look Ahead and The Road to the Final Four
An even wilder second weekend of the men’s college basketball tournament
Wow, what a weekend March Madness experienced this past weekend! If you are telling me right now that your bracket is still intact, I’m going to call you an absolute liar. I don’t think that anyone saw this Final Four coming. At least not in its entirety.
I do remember the conversation that I had with Amol Shrikhande about his UConn Huskies last week. He wasn’t completely convinced they would make it to the Final Four but knew that they would do well on that second weekend. Well, they’re still in the running for the championship, and now my new pick for the champions once the Championship Game comes around here on April 3rd.
They did have the leading scorer remaining in the tournament going into the second weekend and find different ways to win. They are certainly a versatile team. The crazy part is that all three teams I mentioned as my favorites after the first weekend all got knocked out in surprising fashion in the second weekend. Alabama, UCLA, and Houston all lost.
The Final Four is nothing I’ve seen assembled in any college sports ever. Number 9 Florida Atlantic, who reached their first Sweet 16 in school history has now reached the Final Four for the first time. They have a tough matchup against number 5 San Diego State. Then in the other game, number 4 Connecticut takes on a second school from Florida in 5 Miami (FL). There is a high possibility that we see an all-Florida final. I mean, I’m not a big fan of the state or the teams from it but that would definitely be an intriguing championship.
The Florida Atlantic-San Diego State game is on April 1st at 6:09 PM EDT and the Miami (FL)-Connecticut game is at 8:49 PM EDT on the same day. I just want to go back and look at how we got to this point. Florida Atlantic defeated Tennessee in the Sweet 16 game 62–55. They then beat number 3 Kansas State 79–76.
San Diego State defeated number 1 Alabama 71–64 in the Sweet 16 round. Then they beat number 6 Creighton by 1 point, 57–56. Miami (FL) beat number 1 Houston 89–75 in the Sweet 16 round. Then they beat number 2 Texas 88–81. They definitely had one of the tougher roads to the Final Four this weekend having to defeat the top 2 seeds in their region.
UConn defeated number 8 Arkansas 88–65 in the Sweet 16 round. Then they avoided having to play 2 UCLA as 3 Gonzaga defeated them 79–76 in the same round. They then went on to beat number 3 Gonzaga 82–54 to make it to their sixth Final Four, the first since 2014. \
One more notable game to mention over the past weekend was my expected pick of number 6 Creighton ending number 15 Princeton’s cinderella run in the round of 16 by beating them 86–75. Princeton was definitely a great story but at this point, I think that all eyes are on number 9 Florida Atlantic to cap off this great run they’ve had with a championship.
I could see a road for any of these four teams to win the championship and wouldn’t be surprised by any of these storylines. It’ll be fun to watch this final weekend and find out who will take home the championship, cut down the nets, and hear that iconic victory song. We’ll find all of this out on Monday, April 3rd and I’m so excited to see it play out.
