This year’s NCAA Tournament has been a major dud.
There have been some great games and great players — see Jack Gohlke and D.J. Burns — but in terms of an overall entertainment factor, the 2024 NCAA Tournament has largely disappointed.
Aside from Oakland’s first-round upset of third-seeded Kentucky and NC State’s unlikely run to the Final Four, the tournament has been mostly void of big storylines.
Gohlke took the college basketball world by storm in the first round, but Burns stole the show in the second round as the Wolfpack advanced to the Sweet 16.
Elsewhere, though, there hasn’t been much going on.
No. 4 seed Alabama met No. 6 seed Clemson in the Regional Final in the West Region after the two teams knocked off No. 1 seed North Carolina and No. 2 seed Arizona, respectively, but that’s nothing we haven’t seen before.
In fact, NC State’s run to the Final Four isn’t even that unlikely. Five other No. 11 seeds have reached the national semifinal game, four of which have come since the turn of the century.
And in the other two regions, it’s been just about as chalk as it can possibly get.
In both the East and the Midwest Regions, the four teams that made it to the Sweet 16 in each region were seeds No. 1, 2, 3 and 5. No. 13 seed Yale and 11-seed Duquesne pulled off first-round upsets in the East Region, but they quickly were defeated in the second round.
In the Midwest Region, No. 11 seed Oregon defeated sixth-seeded South Carolina, but the Ducks were then eliminated by third-seeded Creighton in the second round.
Zach Edey and Purdue have proven the doubters wrong by reaching their first Final Four since 1980 — which is a solid storyline — but they’re a No. 1 seed, and many expected the Boilermakers to win their region.
Edey’s brand of basketball is nearly unwatchable, and if it weren’t for the solid guard play of Braden Smith and Fletcher Loyer, the entire country might be rooting against Purdue.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the bracket, Connecticut has plowed through its opponents at a rate never before seen in the NCAA Tournament. After easily disposing of its first three opponents, UConn met No. 3 seed Illinois in the Elite Eight and managed to go on a 30-0, yes, 30-0 run on the Fighting Illini.
Come on.
Dan Hurley is a great coach and the Huskies are just two games away from winning back-to-back national championships, but a 30-0 run in the regional semifinal matchup between the two best offenses in college basketball is just absurd.
The only storyline worth mentioning in this year’s Final Four is Burns and NC State. The Wolfpack entered the ACC Tournament having lost their last four games, but they won five games in as many days to take home the ACC Tournament crown and punch their ticket to the Big Dance.
Now, NC State has extended its winning streak to nine games. It’s been an unlikely run, for sure, but it’s not anything we haven’t seen before.
No. 1 seeds UConn and Purdue are on a crash course for the national championship game. It should be an entertaining game, but it will be void of special storylines that the NCAA Tournament has so often provided.