10 things you should know about the 2015 Final Four

It’s hard to believe that the end is near. It feels like just yesterday we were staying up all night together to watch Manhattan battle UMass, and now we’re just over 24 hours away from the start of the Final Four. I’m not crying, Lonesome Dove is just on in the background and Gus is refusing to give up his other leg.

But now’s not the time to let up or lose focus. On the contrary, we must adequately educate ourselves in order to be properly equipped for this season’s final stop.

Here’s a start:

1. Kentucky is the heavy favorite

But you already knew that. What you might not have known is just how rare carrying a monster winning streak into the Final Four is.

Kentucky is just the second team since 1999 to carry a win streak of 30 or more games into the national semifinals, and just the fifth team (Florida 2014, Duke 1999, UNLV 1990, Indiana State 1979, Indiana 1976) ever to ride a win streak of 30 games or more into the Final Four.

The bad news? Of those previous five squads, only the ‘76 Hoosiers went on to win the national championship.

2. Multiple top seeds finally break through

Before this season, multiple No. 1 seeds had failed to make the Final Four in five consecutive seasons, the longest such stretch in NCAA Tournament history. Just four top-seeds had made the Final Four since 2010, by far the lowest five-year total in tournament history. All that has changed thanks to Kentucky, Duke and Wisconsin all making the tournament’s final weekend in 2015.

3. No. 1 overall seeds, however, continue to roll

4. Coach K ties John Wooden

Coaching in his 12th Final Four, Mike Krzyzewski will tie the record set by John Wooden when he takes the court this weekend in Indianapolis, which, by the way, is the same place where Coach K claimed national titles in 1991 and 2010. Krzyzewski’s 86 NCAA Tournament wins are already the most for any college basketball coach ever, and earlier this season, he became the first Division-I coach ever to eclipse 1,000 wins for his career.

It’s not all just Coach K, though. The 25 national semifinal appearances between the coaching quartet of Krzyzewski, John Calipari, Tom Izzo and Bo Ryan is the most of any Final Four ever.

5. The Big 10 streak lives

While the ACC dominated the early tournament conference headlines by going 11-1 through the first week of the Big Dance, it’s the Big 10 that currently owns national bragging rights with two teams still alive for the national title. This is the fourth straight year that the Big 10 has advanced at least one team to the national semifinals, the longest active streak in the country. It’s also the eighth time the league has sent multiple teams to the tourney’s final weekend, the most of any conference. The Big 10 last achieved the feat in 2005 when Illinois and Michigan State did the deed, but the Spartans and Badgers have done this before, both crashing the 2000 Final Four in Indianapolis.

On the flip side, the ACC has a team in the Final Four for the first time in five years, breaking the longest drought in league history.

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6. Izzo the underdog

Michigan State will be a heavy underdog in as many games as it plays in Indianapolis, a fact which likely sits fine with head coach Tom Izzzo. Izzo is 13-9 in the NCAA Tournament as the head coach of a lower-seeded team, the most of any clipboard holder in college hoops history. He’s also 21-4 in the second game of any NCAA Tournament weekend, with all four losses coming to No. 1 seeds or eventual national champions.

As much as Izzo has enjoyed being the underdog, it’s also worth noting that his lone national title came when his team was a heavily favored No. 1 seed. That was in 2000, when the Final Four was also played in Indianapolis.

7. Wisconsin could start a surprising streak

Since the McDonald’s All-American Game went national in 1978, just two teams have claimed national titles without having a single burger boy on their roster -- Maryland in 2002 and Connecticut last season. Wisconsin will have the opportunity to extend that streak of All-American-less champions to two, but to do it they may have to go through a pair of teams in Kentucky and Duke, which have eight apiece.

The odds would seem to be more in favor of the Wildcats or Blue Devils, as three of the past six national champs have had at least six burger boys, and only the ‘06 and ‘07 Florida squads featured fewer than two (Corey Brewer was the lone All-American from that vaunted ‘04 class).

8. Kentucky is clutch

This year’s Wildcat team had a much less dramatic road to the Final Four, but they still performed just as admirably in the one instance where the chips did seem to be a bit stacked against them. After trailing Notre Dame for the bulk of the second half, Kentucky made its last nine field goal attempts in the Midwest Regional final to squeak out a 68-66 victory over the third-seeded Fighting Irish.

Despite all the talk of youth, UK won’t flinch if it finds itself trailing in the second half at some point during its stay in Indy.

9. An unranked Champion?

If Michigan State -- which received just 8 votes from the Associated Press in its final top 25 poll -- was to win the national championship, the Spartans would become the first unranked (by the AP) champion since Larry Brown’s 1988 Kansas squad. The 1985 Villanova team is the only other one to achieve the feat.

Michigan State could also be the first champion since the ‘88 Jayhawks to wear the crown, despite owning double-digit losses. The Spartans head to Indy with a 27-11 record.

10. No “State” teams, but not all State teams either

Two seasons ago, Wichita State became the first Final Four team since 1985 to have “State” in their university’s title without having an actual state name in that same title. A year later, we had the first Final Four since 2002 (Maryland, Kansas, Indiana, Oklahoma) where all the national semifinalists were singularly named after states.

This year, a return to normalcy with two schools singularly named after states in Kentucky and Wisconsin, an actual “state school” in Michigan State .... and Duke.