It’s not difficult to group the programs in this year’s Final Four by previous Final Four experience. You basically just do this:
How long has it been since every team in the Final Four made it this far?
There are two types of programs here in terms of Final Four experience: North Carolina and everyone else.
- Has experience: North Carolina
- Doesn’t have it: Everybody else
The Tar Heels have made 20 Final Fours in their history. Oregon has made two, with the other one coming in the first-ever NCAA tournament in 1939. Gonzaga and South Carolina are both making the first Final Four appearance in program history.
North Carolina made the Final Four last season and fell in the national championship game against Villanova on a buzzer-beating three-pointer. So the Heels really have more experience at this stage of the tournament than everybody else. It’s not just a historical thing, either, because most of UNC’s top contributors this year were also on the team last year. Their players have been here before. No one else’s have.
Gonzaga had been to the Elite Eight twice before this season but fell short both times, most recently in 2014. Gonzaga didn’t make an NCAA tournament field until 1995 and missed three in a row after that. But in the last 19 years, the Zags haven’t missed a single Big Dance. This is just the furthest they’ve gone.
South Carolina had never even made an Elite Eight until this season. The Gamecocks are only in their ninth NCAA tournament in the nearly eight-decade history of the tournament. They lost in the Sweet 16 three years in a row in the 1970s and otherwise hadn’t even breached the opening weekend until this season. They hadn’t appeared in the tournament since 2004, so this has all been quite sudden.
For Oregon, it’s been 78 years. The Ducks won the first NCAA tournament in 1939, when the finals were held at something called the Patten Gymnasium in Evanston, Ill. That tournament had just eight teams in it, for a sense of how long ago it was. The Ducks beat Ohio State in the national title game.
UNC’s Roy Williams is coaching in his ninth Final Four in 27 years leading college basketball teams. He’s won two national titles already, or double the combined championships total of the three teams against whom he’s competing. If you’re rooting for an underdog this week, you’re not rooting for North Carolina.
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