April has begun, but March Madness is not over. The Final Four is here, and as always, nobody expected the teams still standing.
Before we talk about the Final Four teams, there have been many, many highlights from March Madness this year to talk about. Like the upset of Oakland’s soon-to-be accountant Jack Gohlke single handedly beating Kentucky’s future NBA all-star team and the lawyers of Yale beating the SEC champion Auburn Tigers in the first round. Or the superstar battle of Tennessee’s Dalton Knecht and Purdue’s Zach Edey making it a two man show, scoring a combined 77 points. Texas A&M’s buzzer beater sent the game against Houston into overtime after the Aggies were down by 12 points with two minutes left. Duke’s Jared McCain showed he’s more than a famous TikToker by dropping over 30 points in two of the tournament games. The West region of the bracket went nothing like expected, leaving us with what looks like a common football national championship game featuring Clemson against Alabama. All that lead us to where we are now.
The first game of the Final Four is the most exciting one. NC State versus Purdue. This game is seemingly all of America against the students and alumni of Purdue University.
NC State has taken the basketball world by storm the past three weeks. After being the 10th seed in the ACC tournament, they won five games in five days to win the conference championship. They were then placed as the 11th seed in the national tournament — and yet still haven’t lost a game. There’s an even better reason why America is cheering for them though, and his name is DJ Burns Jr. At six foot nine inches tall and 275 pounds and with a big smile during every entire game, there’s no way not to love him. He’s averaging almost 20 points a game in the tournament. There’s more than just one DJ on the team, though, and DJ Horne is one of the best players in the tournament as well. This team has all the heart and momentum to be the first 11th seed to ever win March Madness.
On the other side of the game is No. 1 Purdue. After an embarrassing loss last year to the 16th seeded Fairleigh Dickinson University, a big redemption year was needed. This March Madness has been just that. However, many people don’t think they deserve to be in the Final Four, especially after the game against Tennessee. Purdue is led by seven foot, four inch Zach Edey, who dropped 40 points to beat Tennessee. It was expected for him to be good this tournament and he has delivered — and more. He has won over 400 free throws this season and was fouled 16 times by Tennessee. This means the only way to possibly beat Purdue will be to guard Edey without fouling him. Which so far seems to be impossible for any team to do, especially in March Madness.
The other Final Four game features Alabama versus UConn. This game could be a huge upset — or just another easy win for the Huskies.
UConn is coming into this game as by far the best team in college basketball. They have won every game in the tournament by double digits and almost all of them by twenty or thirty points. This is a team most people may not have even watched play yet because every game has been a blowout from start to finish, so there is no reason to even turn it on because the outcome seems guaranteed. The best part about this team is that there is more than one superstar. Every game in March Madness so far has seen a different scoring leader for the Huskies. Everybody in their starting lineup gets double digit points usually. This makes them a harder matchup than all the other teams, because they don’t rely on one person. I would be putting my hypothetical money (like a lot of other people) on UConn to be back-to-back National Champions.
There is always one outlier in the Final Four and this year that is Alabama. Even though they are the 4th seed in the tournament, most would say they were lucky to be here. Many people had them losing first round to New Mexico. With that said, they were the number one offense in college basketball this year. They proved that when they dropped 109 points on New Mexico and then 89 on Clemson in the Elite Eight. Being able to outscore opponents has been the only way to compensate for their poor defense. However, in the tournament their defense has really stepped up to help close out the games. The steam might be expected to run out eventually, because in the Elite Eight and the Final Four they have been popularly picked as the worst team left standing. If there is anybody that could pull off an unbelievable upset against UConn, maybe it can be the Crimson Tide — but I wouldn’t count on it.
As always, though, this tournament hasn’t disappointed. And the Final Four will just add more stories to this already wild 2024 March Madness tournament.
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