Who shined the most this round of March Madness? Who came up short? Let’s dive into a special edition of winners and losers.
Winner: New Bloods
A term you’ll always hear when it comes to college hoops is “blue bloods”. This sport worships the teams that always win – and for some reason they all seem to wear shades of blue: Duke, Kansas, Kentucky and North Carolina on the men’s side and UConn on the women’s side. They get the best players, play in the biggest games and draw the highest TV ratings. It’s an awe that’s always felt at odds with the spirit of the sport that promises madness – don’t we live for stirrers and misfits? Shouldn’t we be longing for someone new to hold up the trophy?
In 2023, the College Hoops universe flipped. Only one of the men’s teams in this year’s Final Four has won a championship; the other three had never reached a Final Four. Neither of the first two women’s teams to advance past the Elite Eight, LSU and Iowa, has a title. (Two past champions, South Carolina and Maryland, compete Monday for a spot in the Final Four. Last spot goes to either Ohio State or Virginia Tech.) None of the five men’s teams with the most championships and none of the four women’s teams with the most most championships even made it into the Elite Eight of their respective classes.
The men’s tournament is unlike any in history: none of the 1-, 2- and 3-seeded players stand, the first time none have made the Final Four. The last time the Final Four had three first-timers was in 1970, when it was much easier to get three first-timers because they were playing 51 fewer tournaments. Either San Diego State or Florida Atlantic will compete in the national championship game. Either San Diego State or Florida Atlantic will compete in the national championship game. Neither team plays in a major conference, neither team made the Elite Eight earlier this year and after their National Semifinals clash next Saturday, one will be playing for a National Championship.
Prior to this season, Florida Atlantic had never won an NCAA tournament game; The school has never produced an NBA player. The school was best known for “not being Florida International” and “keeping Lane Kiffin busy for a few years.” Now they are in the Final Four! When asked Saturday night if this was the greatest moment in the university’s history, athletic director Brian White was reluctant to say yes – but only because he’s not 100 percent sure what else the university has accomplished. “I don’t understand most of the research that’s going on. They may have cured diseases,” White said on the pitch after FAU reached the Final Four. “I don’t want to put my foot in my mouth, but from a sporting perspective, I don’t see it getting bigger.”
The lone men’s Final Four team with a national title is four-starter UConn — but for the women, the Huskies’ absence is a big story. UConn had reached 14 consecutive Final Fours, but the badly injured Huskies were eliminated from that year’s tournament in Ohio State’s Sweet 16. This year, Stanford had their 14-year Sweet 16 streak cut short when they were upset in the second round last weekend. UConn, Stanford and Tennessee have historically been such dominant teams in women’s basketball that this was the first Elite Eight since 1985 not to include at least one of those schools.
A sport with more potential champions is a healthy sport. It’s a sport that gives fans more reason to believe and a sport that has more stories to tell. College basketball has always masqueraded as a wide open field where anyone can win, but only a select few have actually made it. Now the dreams we dream are finally coming true.
Winner: Miami’s ace-first comeback
Reports say Miami reached its first Final Four by making a 13-point comeback in the second half of its win over a heavily favored Texas team; The detailed breakdowns state that this happened because the Hurricanes switched to an all-small lineup, with forward Jordan Miller playing de facto center for the first time all season; Statistics say they did it because Miller scored 26 points on perfect shooting (7 to 7 from the field, 13 to 13 from the free throw line).
All of this is untrue. Miami won when Wooga Poplar smashed the ball off Texas’ Timmy Allen’s butt and the ball rebounded perfectly at him for an undisputed dunk.
You’ve seen this game before, at all levels from middle school to the NBA. By the way, every team that has ever scored this way has won their game. (That’s true – don’t look.) Texas had just taken their biggest lead of the game when Miami eliminated the ace pass; While the two teams were obliged to finish the game, Texas politely let The U come back and win, as is the custom when someone scores against you in such a humiliating manner.
Loser: Buzzer-Beating Free Throws
A foul in the closing seconds of a close game inevitably turns sports talk into philosophical discussions: is it okay for a referee to call a foul at a crucial moment and decide the game? Isn’t it ethical for a referee to announce every play with the same devotion to the rulebook, no matter what the time is on the clock? If the referees didn’t blow the whistle and allow a team’s players to break the rules of the sport with impunity, wouldn’t the referees decide the game in a different way? Why do bad referees happen to good people?
This scenario happened at the end of last month’s Super Bowl and again at the end of Sunday’s Elite Eight game between San Diego State and Creighton. With the game tied and the clock running out of seconds, SDSU’s attempt to execute a coherent final game to set up a game-winning shot went nowhere. So Darrion rode Trammell and threw up a floater and hoped for the best. His shot popped off the front iron – that was an issue – but the officials blew his whistle. They called out Creighton’s Ryan Nembhard for a subtle but genuine jab to Trammell’s hip while Trammell was airborne:
Trammell finished with 1.4 seconds on the clock. He missed the first free throw to add faux excitement, but got his wits about him and hit the second to win the game and send SDSU to their first Final Four.
The argument for the call is simple: it was a foul! The defender pushed a man who shot. And if it’s a foul in the first half, it’s a foul with the game on the line.
But that’s also part of the argument for why the referee shouldn’t have called the whistle here. This was a very physical game – every game SDSU plays is very physical – but the officials decided only 22 fouls, 11 per team. These are the fewest combined fouls of all games in the entire tournament. Neither team was in the bonus at any point. By way of comparison, Texas alone was penalized with 23 fouls in its loss to Miami.
In the first 39 minutes and 39 seconds, Creighton was called out for just two shot fouls while SDSU went 7-for-17 on shots listed as layups in the official boxing score. That’s not without a few unspoken bumps. Nembhard made the mistake of thinking officials would call the last game what they called the whole game, and now Creighton’s season is over.
Loser: Extremely cool (but technically illegal) shots
A no-basket in the Miami game sparked a whole different rules controversy – not “Should this decision be made?” but “Why does this rule exist?” Hurricanes star Nijel Pack caught a shot that would have earned him a HORSE game but was officially settled as a turnover:
Pack’s shot flew behind and over the backboard and into the net – an amazing feat. Pack was on the move when the ball left his hand and still managed to touch the ball perfectly so it traveled down the backboard, the top of which is 13 feet off the field. But the referees decided the ball was out and gave possession to Texas.
I was a bit surprised by the verdict since NBA players do this shot every once in a while. (Here’s LeBron doing it, and a highlight from Jrue Holiday earlier this year.) But there’s apparently a subtle difference in the rulebooks of pro ball and the college game: The NBA says a ball is out of bounds when he “passes the ball directly behind the back wall, in any direction,” while the NCAA says a ball is out of bounds when “any part of the ball goes over the back wall from any direction.”
I can’t think of any logic behind the NCAA rule. I understand you want any rebounds that ricochet off the top of the board to be out of bounds — but NBA rule does so without eliminating the kind of spectacular shot pack hit on Sunday. It’s a small rule that rarely comes up but stole a moment of tournament brilliance from us.
Winner: The Caitlin Clark Show
The Caitlin Clark Show has been college basketball’s best watch for three years. In 2021, she led Division I in scoring; that year she led Division I in assists; In 2022, she led Division I in scoring and assists. She’s brought sell-out audiences, conference titles and millions of television viewers to Iowa.
Last week we wrote about a manifestation of Clark’s greatness: that even on bad shooting nights, she’s still making numbers and winning games in Iowa. In the Elite Eight against Louisville, she didn’t have a bad shooting night.
She drilled eight 3s and finished with 41 points, 12 assists and 10 rebounds – the first 40-point triple-double ever recorded in an NCAA tournament. Incidentally, it was also the first 30-point triple-double. She jumped so high above what others have achieved that she skipped a step. In the men’s only Oscar Robertson had a 30-point triple-double, and that doesn’t technically count since assists weren’t an official stat when he played.
Everyone knows he’s tuned into The Caitlin Clark Show, including opposing defense, and all he can do is watch. If they guard her too tightly, she’ll just help one of her teammates — or she’ll just hit a 28-foot-3 despite her best efforts. It seemed like Louisville’s best hope of defeating Clark lay in offense from Hailey Van Lith, who is sixth in scoring in the nation. She hung up 27 and it didn’t matter.
The only problem with the Caitlin Clark Show is that previous seasons were canceled early — the Hawkeyes lost in the Sweet 16 in 2021 and stunned in the second round at home on a Creighton buzzer-beater last year. But now basketball’s most electrifying player is showing her best performances against the best opponents in the biggest games of the year. Their next opponent could be South Carolina, the reigning champions and big favorites for the title. It could be the best episode yet.
Winner: UConn Magic (Again)
I’ve always felt deeply insecure in the state of Connecticut, a place where I’ve spent years of my life. People there insist that Connecticut has the best pizza in the world, even though nobody else tries to make Connecticut-style pizza; It’s one of the most densely populated states in the nation, with 88 percent of the population living in “urban” settings, although Connecticut isn’t typically considered cities; and it has the largest sports media empire in the world, although there are no professional sports teams. The image in your mind of What Connecticut Looks Like (Stars Hollow on Gilmore Girls) is actually a Los Angeles studio and not necessarily related to what Connecticut actually looks like. It’s a place between the realms – New York and New England in particular – and you should fear it deeply. Don’t just rely on me – check out the UConn basketball team.
The women are the queens of college hoops – in every year but this one – and the men are the kings when it comes to showing up in March and randomly winning the whole damn thing. The Huskies have won four championships since 1999, more than any other team in that era, but it doesn’t feel like a dynasty: They’ve had three coaches and have been in conference limbo thanks to the football program’s utter non-competitiveness. Neither title feels connected, and the last two came completely out of nowhere.
In 2011, the Huskies finished ninth in the Big East and had lost seven of their last 11 games en route to the conference tournament. At that point, Kemba Walker decided he was done with losing. The Huskies won five games in five days (including some legendary winners) to conquer the Big East, then advanced to the Final Four and defeated Butler in one of the ugliest championship games ever. In 2014, under second-year coach Kevin Ollie, the Huskies battled Louisville and SMU 5-0 in the new American Athletic Conference; They got a 7 seed in the NCAA tournament and still won it, becoming the lowest seedling to ever take home a championship. Both title games were against 8-Seeds, the only two 8-Seeds to ever reach the championship.
It will take place again this year. After a slump in January when the Huskies lost six of eight games, the Huskies received only a 4-seed in the NCAA tournament. But the tournament started and they became absolutely dominant. You’ve won four games for a total of 90 points – no Kemba buzzer beaters needed. They beat Gonzaga by 28 in the Elite Eight, the only one of the four games not to hit the spot.
And just like in 2011, they made it to the Final Four only to find all the best teams were already eliminated. This Final Four was the first without a 1- or 2-seed; This is the first without 1, 2 or 3 seeds. The Huskies are clear favorites to win the Final Four, an odd scenario for any team – but especially for a four-seed team.
It feels like another UConn miracle run – and yet it isn’t. Advanced metrics have seen the Huskies as one of the best teams in the sport all year. Twenty-five of their 29 wins have been in double digits, while four of their eight losses have been by three points or fewer. Other than that January slip, they’re 22-2, with comfortable wins over top-tier sides like Alabama and Marquette. They entered the NCAA tournament fourth in Ken Pomeroy’s ratings – far higher than you’d expect from a 4-seed – and have moved up to #1. 1. The data says the Huskies are not only the best team remaining, but also the best team in basketball this season.
Past runs in Connecticut have been testament to the madness of March; this year they showed us the madness of the regular season. The huskies always seem to be up to something out of the ordinary; This year, they hid a true title contender in the guise of an NCAA tournament fluke.