This year’s Final Four teams prove there is more than 1 way to get to San Antonio

Make a way for Fab Four.

In the NCAA tournament it is a rumble in heavy weight. Stories of losers? Cinderella stories? Even the smallest surprise?

You came to the wrong finals four.

Auburn and Florida, Duke and Houston. 1 in their regions on Sunday, all headed to San Antonio. No. 1-4 in Kenpoma charts. No. 1-4 in the network ranking. No. 1-4 in the Associated Press survey. If you want to choose all the Final Four teams in your parentheses this March this year, it was enough for what you needed was willing to get bored. Go with chalk or go home.

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“The four teams that advanced, I think they are the four best teams in the country,” said coach Auburn Bruce Pearl. “This obviously does not always happen.”

How powerful is this field?

Only once 45 years ago, the finals were four, which were No. 1 and nothing but. That was 2008.

When the Duke and Houston meet next Saturday, it will be two teams that are together from 1 December 60-2. Repeat, 60-2.

And neither of them is the highest seed in the tournament. Auburn is. Do you know who beat Auburn on nine points on your own floor? Florida yes. It won’t add a little ginger to their meeting. “It’s another team in the way to get to the National Championship,” said Tigers’ Chaney Johnson.

Another 64 teams tried to disrupt the natural order, but no cubes. These four Goliians won 10 of their 16 tournament games with double characters.

The nearest Auburn game was six points in Michigan State on Sunday, but the tigers stretched for only 22 seconds and were up to 15. “I felt better. I felt like I had better players,” Pearl said. “That’s not criticism at all. I just told our boys, we haven’t beat the team yet that I thought it was better than us. That’s why we’re total seed no.”

Duke watched only 5:35 in 160 minutes.

Houston had his brush for a second with Purdue, but he was at the top of Gonzaga and Tennessee Wire to be able to, forward for all 58 seconds and up to 14 and 22.

Florida had to postpone Connecticut and gather around Texas Tech, but his talent for Ko Punch was on a clear display. The Gators fired around Texas Tech with an 18-4 closing kick, as well as postponing Maryland with a 47-33 second half, as well as the first 36 points in the first 36 minutes against Connecticut, and then ended Huskies with 14 points in the last four.

Look back: full of seed history no. 1 in NCAA tournament

Yeah, it is a corresponding quartet in terms of expectations and dominance and elite ranking. . . Almost everything. And they roll in the tournament according to the book.

Teams with higher deployment went this weekend 16-0, for the first time it happened since the field expanded to 64 teams 40 years ago.

And yet it is also the final of Tutti Frutti.

The taste of Galore.

There’s a Blueblood from Duke, who was at 17 of these things and won five.

And a long suffering from Houston, with six previous four, recently during remarkable success, but still an empty case of trophy.

Is Auburn, back only for the second time. And Florida, the biggest name in sports almost two decades ago. Marking many as football schools, but with both eyes in March.

There are two SEC teams, so the telling of the Super League continues. But there are also two teams that had to beat the Sec opponents this weekend and not only beat them, but dropped the hammer. The Duke and Houston have destroyed Alabama and Tennessee by 39 points in the last two days and now meet each other. Finnish result: The National Championship is guaranteed to have one SEC team. And also guaranteed he won’t have two. “Unfortunately,” Pearl said.

Like your coaches on the Fuzzy-Návře side? Duke’s Jon Scheyer is 37, Florida’s Todd Golden 39. When this month began, Golden never won the NCAA tournament game.

Prefer geezers? Houston’s Kelvin Sampson is 69, Auburn’s Pearl 65.

National champions between four of them: zero. The one who won all the titles for Duke is retired, the one who won all the titles for Florida trains Chicago Bulls. Sampson and Pearl chased this rainbow throughout their lives.

There are incendiary crimes.

Duke set fire to Alabama by late 13-0 growth. That was 39 this season. The time when Blue Devils had at least 10-0 while their opponents had seven. This is the main reason for 22 victories by at least 20 points. For the tournament, Blue Devils shoots 56.2 percent, 47.3 from behind the arch and 83.3 from the free throw line. And the ratio of assistance turnover 77-29.

Auburn Sunday continued running 17-0. Against the Michigan State. Who is doing that?

Florida’s ability to go to jugular is obvious. Walter Clayton JR, hit so many big shots without nerves, or feared that he seems to be on automatic pulp. In the final 5:24 he scored 13 of his 30 points against Texas Tech, including two late 3-outs. In the tournament he earns better than 45 percent of his 3 and recently has his name even in the same paragraph with Steph Curry, even though he is pulling this idea. “This is probably the biggest point of points in the history of basketball. I have ways to go,” he said.

What went through Clayton’s mind when he bought those critical late shots against Texas Tech with the season of his team on the line? “Nothing my mind took place. My mind was empty,” he said. Words of March Assassina. That’s why Golden said, “There is no other player in America you have right now than Walter Clayton with the ball in his hands in a big moment.”

Yeah, a lot of offense in this group. But then there is Houston’s defense.

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It took almost 14.5 minutes to reach double numbers on Sunday. Until then, Vols missed 19 out of 22 attempts, was 0: 13 in 3-pointers and had as many shots as possible that Cougars entered. The score was 34–15 in the half-time-second points in the first half for the team in the elite eight since 1979 since 1979 and the smallest for the team in the first year.

This ended 69-50, 22. The opponent that Cougars held under 60 points this season.

“Houston, they do what they do,” said Tennessee’s Rick Barnes. “That’s why they are where they are.”

There are freshmen of the national reputation and most of them play for Duke. Cooper Flagg & Co. “Age is just a number,” Scheyer said. Good thing, because his biggest star is barely 18, “it is obvious that it is different to have three freshmen who start. We played five freshmen in a team that is going to the final four. I think we have always thought about doing things differently”

Then again, Auburn’s John Broome will play his 168. University game, and if there was no such man as Cooper Flagg, he would be a national player of the year by a few rounds. His Sunday work against the Michigan State and the defense of Tom Izzza: 25 points, shooting 10 to 13, 14 rebounds. And he did it while he was missing for five minutes with an injured elbow, he had to go to the dressing room for treatment, because the whole base of the fans detained.

“That’s why All-American is. That’s why he’s a candidate for the player of the year.” When your guy 1 brings it and you know he’s about several years, she deserves to go on. “

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pppjrqgspqk

Pearl remembered the conversation when Broome returned to the bench.

“Is it good to go?” Pearl asked.

“I am.”

“Well, put your ass there.”

Auburn begins with four seniors and a postgraduate student, Houston two grad students and the fourth year of juniors, the three best shooters of Florida are two seniors and Grad students. And the Duke will be there with a lot of children. More than one way to get to April.

Did she present an attraction on Saturday? Start with the Houston defense vs. Flagg and Duke Machine. If Blue Devils win, Scheyer will have 90 victories and no coach in the division never had so much of his first three seasons.

But all-sec match-a Broome vs. Clayton-not also bad. Star power enough to turn on Texas.

So San Antonio braces for four teams that are almost the same, except when they differ. The excitement of this moment is quite a normal thread through all four.

For Sampson, in his third finals of four with two different schools, Oklahoma and Houston: “I think being modest and staying hungry every day really helped us. I’m excited before I leave now. I’m really excited. I’m really excited for these children, but it’s their moment and I’m just happy for them.” Cougars were in the final of 2021, but it was a pandemic bubble in Indianapolis. This will be Houston’s first finals four with all the values ​​in 41 years.

For Thomas Haugough on Florida: “I feel like I dreamed. I watched the 64 bike in the eighth grade that shattered into the scientific class.

For Scheyer describing this path as the successor of the dynasty Mike Krzyzewski. He is the first coach not scored krzyzewski to take duke to a final four in 47 years: “i’ve always wanted to make him stream. TALKED AND LOT ABOUT.

For Auburn’s Pearl, he looked at an era where Auburn was able to do every Fan, besides the landing, there is a sport. “We’re a football school. We’re. Never forget that,” he said. “But we are also a school.”

It turned out that this March was a month of four mountains, too high to climb. “Someone will go home sad. Today they are Spartans.” Izzo said. “Next Saturday it will be another two teams. Next Monday it will be another team. I don’t want to do it as modest as it sounds because it is not.”

When it all started, the numbers said that four teams would be very, very difficult to beat. Were. But now they will have to be three of them.