Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK
This tournament has been everything people want — so why are people mad?
If you want to argue that the 2023 NCAA men’s basketball tournament has been bad: You’re wrong. You’re factually, objectively wrong. I totally get being disappointed your team didn’t go further or having an axe to grind with the process because of all the top seed failure — but stepping away from emotion this tournament hasn’t just been incredible, but historic.
The 2023 Final Four is the first time in the history of the tournament that there isn’t a No. 1, No. 2 or No. 3 seed left. You have to go back to 2011 when UConn won the national championship from a three seed to find a lower combined seeding. This year we have unprecedented parity. Brackets worshiping the altar of chalk torn apart by these four teams, all of whom have gotten to this moment on the back of at least one incredible upset.
Each year we relish in March Madness, but it’s often not that “mad.” Sure, there’s the inevitable 12-seed beating a No. 5, a few upsets along the way, perhaps the Cinderella team nobody predicted who inevitably loses in the Elite Eight — but as we keep sifting down, we’re almost always left with that fine, chalky powder at the end. Last year’s Final Four featured two No. 2 seeds and a No. 1, 2021 gave us two No. 1s and a No. 2 before that.
In 2023 we have a No. 4, two No. 5s, and a No. 9. Parity on the grandest stage in men’s college basketball, and if you’re someone getting all angsty about this “not representing the regular season,” you’re wrong — and that argument only holds water on paper. In fact, this Final Four perfectly represents the men’s college basketball season we witnessed. It was an undoubtably weird year, where nobody was a true standout lock before the season began. Hell, in the preseason rankings North Carolina were the favorites to cut down the nets, and they ended up rejecting an NIT bid out of embarrassment. Of the preseason Top 25 we had eight teams fail to make the tournament at all.
Part of this was due to a decided lack of NBA star power this tournament. The top two pro prospects, Victor Wenbanyama and Scoot Henderson are taking alternate paths to the NBA — while only five of the Top 10 players in our latest mock draft were in the tournament at all. This wasn’t a season that could be won by recruiting or bullying with superior talent alone, and 2023 has shown that system, fundamentals, and scheme have been vastly more important than one or two great players.
Isn’t this what we always wanted? No one-and-done phenoms putting in their NCAA penance. No overloaded star roster running everyone out of the gym. No Power 5 domination while the rest of the basketball peasants were left to pick up the scraps. In fact, this is the first Final Four since seeding began in 1979 that doesn’t feature a single former McDonald’s All-American, and there isn’t one player left in the tournament who was a Top 30 recruit. Every team left in the tournament worked their asses off to get to this point by developing as a team, executing a plan that could turn overlooked players into champions, and spitting on the notion that only five conferences matter.
Only one Power 5 school remains: Miami from the ACC. Hardly the basketball luminaries expected out of the Atlantic Coast Conference.
The Mountain West had a 3-18 record in the NCAA tournament since 2015 — until San Diego State’s run this year.
UConn were 10th in the final AP Poll of the season and expected to run into a Kansas buzzsaw in the tournament and failing that losing to either UCLA or Gonzaga.
Florida Atlantic… what’s left to say? The Owls have been absolutely sensational this tournament and proven they were getting slept on.
It’s moments like this that remind us why we have a 68 team tournament to decide the best team in men’s college basketball. It’s designed to be the brutal gauntlet to close out the season, rewarding teams able to survive in its crucible. So to see so many fans be dismissive of the process, claim that it’s somehow flawed, and doesn’t “really decide the best team in basketball” is absolutely ridiculous. That argument is only now being applied when the Final Four features a group of unpredictable teams, when in the past, when chalk has dominated — somehow it was fine.
We call this “March Madness” for a reason. This year’s tournament has embraced the chaos like nothing before it, and we’ve been gifted a bracket from the basketball gods truly worth of that “madness” moniker. Enjoy the ride, love the unpredictability, and marvel at the basketball these remaining teams play — because we might never see it again.
