2022 NCAA Final Four: My Point of View
This far into any college basketball season I usually have written a few things about it, especially in relation to Indiana University and occasionally BYU. Even women's, which in both cases were better than the men's teams this year.
But now we are at the Final Four, and I wanted to share my thoughts and hopes.
By way of explanation, I am a lifelong Indiana University fan, and I was spoiled as a kid when we used to win national championships. It has been a long haul ever since.
I watch the other blue bloods, Indiana no longer being a part of it, adding rings to their lifetime numbers, specifically Kentucky, North Carolina, Duke, and now Villanova and even Connecticut. All are surpassing or catching up with IU's all-time NCAA final victories, accomplished in 1940, 1953, 1976, 1981, and 1987.
Ancient history to many. The closest wiff of a final victory came and went in 2002, and yes, that is now two decades in the rear window.
As we speak, or as I am writing, UNC is playing #15 St. Peter's, who just upset Purdue to be the first seed of this number to make it to the Elite 8. The Peacocks will lose, and the Tar Heels will advance. (Tar Heels off to a 7-0 lead to start.)
Between these schools which have made it to the end, UNC has 6 championships, Duke has 5, Kansas has 4, and Villanova 3.
So, I would rather Duke win 6 than UNC get 7. This would mean Mike Kwieshevsky would win his sixth ever. His last year. Fitting for some. A Bob Knight protégé, he did spend one year in my hometown Bloomington. Then went back to Army, where Knight trained him, and then to Duke to make a lot of history. He has made his 13th Final Four, which breaks the record by John Wooden of UCLA. And yes, UCLA still has their overall all-time 11 rings. Most of them achieved from before the Knight era ranging from 1971 to 2000. And Wooden, for the record, is from Martinsville, Indiana, a mere 25 miles from Bloomington in southern Indiana, again, where I am born and raised.
Wooden also graduated from Purdue University, an Indiana state school with many great teams over the decades, many of whom have choked, as they just did as a 4 seed two nights ago. They even claim that they won a couple national championships BEFORE the NCAA tournament began in 1939. For the record, the NIT tourney had a huge prestige and respect along the lines of the NCAA before Wooden cemented the March Madness of the dejour times as defined now.
So, I would rather Duke win than UNC, and I would rather have Kansas win than either; I would rather have Villanova win than the Carolina teams, but the Wildcats have won too many too recently, so the Jayhawks would be better. IU beat them twice in the 1940s and 1950s, so it is about time that the great program catches up with IU at five, maybe. They definitely have had many excellent teams the last 25 years, and only have won it all once.
So there's that.
Make sense?
It will be decided a week from now.
So be it, college basketball.
Love it, hate it, dream it, long for it.
Next year, Mike Woodson will be better. In Bloomington.
So will BYU, right.
Of course.
