By Aidan Joly
Last year’s Final Four featured four bluebloods in Kansas, North Carolina, Duke and Villanova.
With this year’s Final Four being UConn, Miami, San Diego State and Florida Atlantic, the vibes couldn’t be any more different. That’s a good thing.
A lot of years, the NCAA tournament isn’t a 100% accurate reflection of the college basketball regular season – which is okay and that’s what makes this tournament so special.
But this year’s ended with the team that had the most regular season wins going to the Final Four, the team that finished first in the ACC, the team that looked unstoppable for long stretches this season, and a mid-major powerhouse that was going to have a shot in 2020 before COVID canceled the tournament.
UConn looked dominant through the second weekend, beating Arkansas by 23 and then following it up by beating Gonzaga by 28 in the Elite Eight. Miami will meet the Huskies in the second matchup of Saturday night but the game that more people will have their eyes on.
UConn coach Dan Hurley has rebuild this proud program from the ugly days of the American Athletic Conference and the ugly dismissal of former coach Kevin Ollie, to losing in the first round last year, now to this. Not bad for a guy who was teaching high school history and coaching high school ball 13 years ago when Wagner took a shot at him and gave him his first college coaching job.
Miami was a dark horse Final Four team all season and now the Canes are here. It says so much about the type of program that Jim Larrañaga has run in Miami. We have seen a lot of the older coaches fail to adapt with the times, but the 73-year-old coach has done so in a big way, capitalizing off of NIL and that has gotten his program another step further than what it did last year.
Larrañaga can say that he is the best coach in program history at two different schools, Miami and George Mason. This year, he returns to the Final Four for the first time since 2006. He did it behind the core of ACC Player of the Year Isaiah Wong, along with Jordan Miller, Nijel Pack and Norchad Omier.
Personally, I’m excited to watch the matchup of Omier against UConn big man Adama Sanogo, two guys who are huge inside and can do a lot of things well under the basket. Something is going to have to give there.
Meanwhile, it is some feel good stories for both San Diego State and Florida Atlantic. It’s still wild to say that one of them will play for a national championship on Monday night.
SDSU coach Brian Dutcher had waited nearly 35 years for a head coaching opportunity when he took over the Aztecs after Steve Fisher’s retirement in 2017. He was 57 years old when he got his first head coaching job. In the 2019-20 season, the Aztecs were 30-2 and a true national championship contender when the world got turned upside-down and we didn’t get an NCAA tournament.
Three years later, he has that shot again. Dutcher is a guy who deserves this moment and is easy to root for.
Finally, Florida Atlantic came in as the most-underseeded team in the entire tournament, getting a 9-seed after going 31-3 in the regular season and winning the Conference USA title (also – the Conference USA is 17-1 in postseason play this season – Charlotte won the CBI and North Texas and UAB will play for the NIT title on Thursday night).
Florida Atlantic did not have a basketball program until 1988, did not go Division I until 1993, had one NCAA tournament appearance under its belt in 2002 and had never won a national postseason tournament game until a few weeks ago.
This is an incredible job done by head coach Dusty May. This is a young team too. It has just one senior and its top three leading scorers in Johnell Davis, Alijah Martin and Vladislav Goldin are all sophomores. Easily, one of the best coaching jobs in the country this season. The crazy thing is, if most or all stay, FAU will be even better next year and the year after that. It’s a story of getting the right group together and succeeding at a high level.
FAU is off to the American Athletic next season, where it will see better competition in league play. No matter what happens this weekend, this team will be back.
This all being said, this year’s Final Four might not have the household name programs, but it is great basketball and a true reflection of what this season has been.
AJ Hoops 