What are your predictions for the Men’s and Women’s Final Four matchups?
March is over, but there is still a little bit of Madness to go. We have reached the “medal round” for the greatest event in sports (with the possible exception of the World Cup every 4 years). Four teams remain in the men’s and women’s fields, and the semifinals will be tonight for the women and Saturday for the men. The women will have their title game on Sunday and the men will wrap things up on Monday.
There have been some great story lines on both sides so far. In the women’s tournament, we saw Caitlin Clark and Iowa get even on the LSU team who defeated them in last year’s championship and make it to the Final Four. We have seen Paige Bueckers bring UCONN back to the Final Four after missing all of last season with an injury. We have seen South Carolina not lose a game all season, a feat they accomplished last year before bowing out in the Final Four. And there is North Carolina State, the only non-1 seed to get to Cleveland, looking to play spoilers to the team from their neighboring state.
Speaking of NC State, their men’s team is also in the Final Four, and has taken an even more improbable run to get here, having become only the second team in history to win five games in five days to win their conference tournament, an accomplishment they needed to accomplish just to get to the dance. The unlikely ACC Title earned the Wolfpack an 11-seed, and they are now tied with five previous teams as the lowest seed to get to the Final Four. No previous 11-seed has made it to the championship game. The only previous team to win five-in-five for a conference crown was UCONN, a team who are also in this Final Four and who are looking to become the first team since the 2006 and 2007 Florida teams to go back-to-back. Speaking of things that has only happened once before this season, Purdue is looking to complete their redemption by winning it all after falling as a 1-seed a year ago to a 16-seed, which the previous team to have that distinction, Virginia in 2018, successfully accomplished in their following season. And lastly, there is Alabama, who is the only program to ever make the CFP playoffs and then the Final Four in the same school year. To tie this into MSU, the Spartans did it in the same calendar year, but different school years, when they made the Final Four in 2015 and then the CFP after the 2015 season.
So how does it all end? Let’s hear what you all think.
Enjoy the games.