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North Carolina’s Caleb LoveTim Nwachukwu/Getty Images
After an upset-riddled first three rounds of the 2022 men’s NCAA tournament that completely shattered every single bracket filled out, the higher seeds finally reigned supreme in the Elite Eight.
Duke and Villanova took care of business on Saturday, and then it was Kansas and North Carolina getting the job done against the double-digit seeds on Sunday.
And the result is a Final Four in which all four programs have won (at least) one national championship since 2008.
Should be a slightly entertaining early April in the Big Easy, wouldn’t you say?
But before we move on to the Final Four, let’s take a look back on the biggest winners and losers from Sunday of the Elite Eight.
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Miami’s Kameron McGustyQuinn Harris/Getty Images
There were many peculiarities on the stat sheet at halftime of Sunday’s opening game between Kansas and Miami (FL).
For starters, Miami—which entered the game with a minus-163 rebound margin on the year—was plus-three on the glass against a Kansas team that entered the game with a plus-192 rebound margin.
Equally confounding was Miami, which had a plus-28 turnover margin in its first three games of the NCAA tournament, sitting at minus-three in the turnovers department against a Kansas team that was minus-one through its first three tournament games.
But what wasn’t surprising was Miami’s ability to beat Kansas off the dribble.
Staying in front of driving guards has been a season-long struggle for the Jayhawks. And whether it was Isaiah Wong going up against Christian Braun, Charlie Moore taking on DaJuan Harris Jr. or frankly anyone trying to stay in front of Kam McGusty, Miami was at its best when it cleared out that side of the floor and let a playmaker do his thing.
As a result, Miami shot 10-of-18 from inside the arc and held a 35-29 lead against the much bigger Jayhawks. Unfortunately for the underdog Hurricanes, Bill Self made some halftime adjustments.
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Kansas’ Ochai Agbaji contests a shot by Miami’s Kam McGustyStacy Revere/Getty Images
Throughout the first 20 minutes, the Miami Hurricanes dared DaJuan Harris to beat them, and his response was basically the “No, I don’t think I will” meme from Avengers: Endgame.
While Miami’s defense did everything in its power to shut down Ochai Agbaji and Jalen Wilson—they combined for six points on seven field-goal attempts in the first half—Harris was left wide open time and again, and he attempted only two shots.
It sure seems like Bill Self saw that work to perfection and decided to employ a similar strategy on defense in the second half.
Rather than letting Isaiah Wong and Kam McGusty continue to run isolation offense, the Jayhawks swarmed Miami’s two best scorers every time they touched the ball. That left guys like Wooga Poplar, Anthony Walker and Sam Waardenburg open if they wanted to take shots, but they didn’t. Instead, Wong and McGusty kept taking contested shots, and the Hurricanes managed to score only 15 points in the second half.
In addition to that defensive adjustment, Kansas flexed its muscles on the glass in the second half (plus-16), and the three-point luck turned drastically in the Jayhawks’ favor. They shot 0-of-5 in the first half compared to 5-of-9 after the intermission. Meanwhile, Miami went from 3-of-8 to 0-of-13.
And that’s how a potential major upset can turn into a laugher of a 26-point blowout in a heartbeat.
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Kansas’ Bill SelfJeff Haynes/Getty Images
Get ready to feel old if you still remember when Bill Self was just a plucky up-and-coming coach at Tulsa.
Self has been at Kansas for 19 seasons now, 18 of which did not have the NCAA tournament canceled by a global pandemic. In nine of those 18 seasons, he has guided the Jayhawks to the Elite Eight.
In five of those nine years (four of them as a No. 1 seed), the Jayhawks got bounced in the regional final. And in the first half against Miami, a whole lot of Kansas fans were having flashbacks to the 2011 loss to VCU, the 2017 loss to Oregon and the 2007 loss to UCLA, each of which came by double digits.
Instead, the win that will send Self to the fourth Final Four of his career ended up being one of the most convincing of all.
Prior to Sunday, the Self-led Jayhawks had won only two non-first-round NCAA tournament games by a margin of at least 21 points. Kansas beat No. 9 seed UAB by 26 in the 2004 Sweet 16 and smoked No. 4 seed Purdue by 32 points in the 2017 Sweet 16.
No. 10 seed or not, beating Miami by 26 in the Elite Eight was quite the statement.
That big win sets up a Final Four showdown between coaches each participating in their fourth Final Four. In fact, Self and Jay Wright met in the Final Four only four years ago, with Villanova seemingly incapable of missing a shot en route to a 95-79 victory.
Will Self get his revenge and get to the third national title game of his career?
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Matt Slocum/Associated Press
Even with No. 2 Duke and No. 2 Villanova winning on Saturday, there was still a chance that Sunday was going to give us the most preposterous Final Four grouping of all time.
If either No. 10 Miami or No. 15 Saint Peter’s had won, it would have been an unbelievable story.
The only No. 10 seed to ever reach the Final Four was Syracuse in 2016, but Miami getting there would have actually been a Cinderella story. I know the Hurricanes play in the ACC, but they have never been No. 1 in the AP poll, have never been a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament and had never made it to an Elite Eight until this year.
Of course, the bigger Cinderella prospect was Saint Peter’s, which was already the first team seeded No. 13 or worse to ever reach the Elite Eight. The Peacocks had never won an NCAA tournament game prior to shocking Kentucky in the first round earlier this month. Whether they beat North Carolina or not, the Peacocks had already cemented their spot in NCAA lore as the greatest underdog run ever. But getting to the Final Four would have been like a million pound cherry on the Cinderella sundae.
Both Miami and Saint Peter’s getting to the national semifinals would’ve been just plain bonkers.
Alas, neither underdog even came close to crashing the party in New Orleans.
At least Miami looked good in the first half against Kansas. Saint Peter’s was down 9-0 to North Carolina barely three minutes into the game and fell behind by more than 20 before halftime even arrived. Credit to the Peacocks for continuing to fight and never throwing in the towel, but the second game of the day was over almost as soon as it started.
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Duke-UNC in the NCAA tournament for the first time will be funGerry Broome/Associated Press
Would it have been awesome to have Saint Peter’s in the Final Four?
Absolutely.
The Peacocks crashing that party with the most improbable run of all-time might have been enough to get people talking about anything other than Coach K’s farewell tour, at least for an hour or two.
But is anyone going to complain about a Duke-UNC and Villanova-Kansas Final Four?
Absolutely not.
These are four of the best programs in college basketball, with a combined total of nine national championships (three by Duke, three by North Carolina, two by Villanova and one by Kansas) in the past 20 NCAA tournaments.
No matter how the pairings worked out, it would have been great. And that means we are guaranteed one heck of a national championship game.
But the pairings that we actually got are the greatest rivalry in the history of the sport on one side and a rematch from the 2018 Final Four, pitting two of the greatest coaches in the game on the other side.
The Final Four is always entertaining, but this one should be legendary.
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