When April rolled around the calendar corner, the annual craziness of March Madness had settled, and the National Championship concluded with the University of Florida Gators as victors. They defeated the University of Houston Cougars on Monday, April 7.
This year, we witnessed, for just the second time in history, that the Final Four group consisted of the top seed from each region. Florida, Houston, Auburn, and Duke all swept their respective regions, with little doubt or resistance at any stage. With the success of the 1 seeds, the tournament featured no true “Cinderella” teams this year. An 11-seeded Arkansas made it to the Sweet 16 after toppling two-seed S.t John’s University, however, the lowest seed to reach the Elite 8 was 3-seed Texas Tech. It has been a year lacking many surprises, causing the tournament to fall short of its “Madness” name.
Going into March Madness, the major storyline was the prevalence of Southeastern Conference (SEC) teams selected to play. The conference had a record-breaking fourteen out of their sixteen teams make March Madness, clearing the previous record of eleven teams held by the Big East Conference. It has sparked a contentious debate centered around whether the conference deserved this many bids, even despite the phenomenal seasons of these teams.
The SEC’s detractors have been proven wrong as the tournament has gone on. At this point, the SEC has the second-highest winning percentage of any conference with tournament teams at .628. They set another record with seven teams making the Sweet 16, making up nearly half of the remaining field. Two teams in the Final Four were SEC schools and Florida will be representing the conference in the National Championship game. This historic performance has silenced some critics, who doubted the SEC’s basketball stature before the tournament began.
March Madness also may have exacerbated a growing trend in college sports – the importance of the transfer portal. While they lost to Florida in the Final Four, Auburn had one of the best seasons in school history. They did this on the back of a starting five with an average age of 23.3 years old. This means Auburn’s lineup is older than some NBA franchises’ starting 5 ages. Legendary St. John’s head coach Rick Pitino has built on this, saying he is only recruiting transfer portal players, ignoring high school recruiting entirely. So it seems that Auburn’s success has fueled this perspective shift. Large universities might begin to recruit only players who have had success at smaller schools, making these “mid-major” schools become a sort of feeder system for the teams with larger NIL budgets.
National Championship Monday had serious implications for both schools and their legacies. With a win, Florida claimed their third national title, entering them into an elite group of eight other schools to have done so. However, Florida is now the only member of the group to have won all of their championships in the 21st century. It cements them as a contemporary dominant basketball school.
Houston, on the other hand, has never won a national title. This is despite them reaching the Final Four on seven different occasions. They have had success in almost every era of college basketball, yet have not been able to clear the hump and lift the trophy. Their loss on Monday prevented them from finally entering the record books after decades of deserved success. Regardless, now that the net was cut down Monday night, the slate is clean, and a new season will come around with new storylines to talk about.
