Growing Your Own
When the buzz was all about building your team through the transfer portal, the men’s Final Four has shown that holding onto your guys can pay off, too.
Tipoff
This college basketball season had an absurd amount of hype. Coach K’s retirement tour; transfer portal mayhem; Aliyah Boston and Caitlin Clark competing for the women’s National Player of the Year and National Title trophies; exciting one-and-done prospects at Auburn, Duke, and Gonzaga; the return of the blue bloods as Duke and Kentucky bounced back in a big way; new faces emerging on the scene; and then the first 15-seed to reach the Elite 8 in NCAA men’s tournament history. This season has had it all with one notable absence in the men’s Final Four. Where are all the transfers?
From the teams in the Final Four, a noticeable paucity of high-impact transfers will take the floor. There will be a few here and there. North Carolina’s Brady Manek and his luxurious beard will be the most noticeable. Justin McKoy may make an appearance off the bench. Remy Martin and Jalen Coleman-Lands of Kansas also come off the bench. Theo John of Duke provides a few minutes for Mark Williams to catch a breather. Caleb Daniels of Villanova is a more traditional transfer, having come from Tulane two summers ago and sat out a year in doing so.
What was hailed as the new form of free agency in college basketball has largely fizzled out with the remaining teams primarily built from players that have been with their programs from the beginning. This begs the question: do you need to grow your own to win in March (and April)? That may be one way of doing it, but it’s hardly the only way. Just last year, Baylor featured several high-impact transfers. In 2019, Texas Tech was similarly constructed. If anything, the Final Four teams are a quirk of the tournament. When anything can happen, it often does.
THE FIELD OF 68 AFTER DARK TO PARTNER WITH GORDON BIERSCH IN NEW ORLEANS
After Dark is currently broadcast on the Field of 68’s YouTube and social channels and on Sirius XM Channel 84 (ESPNU Radio). The crew will broadcast from the Gordon Biersch Brewery and restaurant in New Orleans throughout Final Four week with lunchtime and happy hour shows on Friday, April 1 (no fooling!) and Monday, April 3.
Gordon Biersch is located at 200 Poydras Street in New Orleans. Gordon Biersch, founded over 25 years ago, is where German precision brewing meets American craft beer. Each restaurant has an onsite brewery where local Brewmasters brew to the highest German standards and use the purest ingredients to create clean, fresh German lagers and the finest American craft beer.
After Dark will be hosting pre-game and post-game shows from the Superdome on the night of the Final Four and the national title game.
The Mixtape
The Field of 68 team puts out lots of great content each week. Let’s take a look at some of the highlights.
In case you didn’t know, both Kansas and Villanova are also in the Final Four. It might be hard to tell given all the talk about Duke and UNC. At any rate, we’ve got a great Villanova preview from our guys Curtis Sumpter on the Blueblood on the Mainline podcast. Curtis was joined by Randy Foye to preview the big matchup with Kansas. They also discuss their time together as Wildcats. Can Jay Wright overcome the tragic injury to Justin Moore? What will it take to advance to the National Title Game?
And now to hear from the other side of the sidelines, we’ve got Richard and Landen Lucas with the Glue Guys podcast to give their preview from a Kansas perspective. The Lucases are joined by former Jayhawk Elijah Johnson. KU ended Providence’s good luck and then stormed back in the second half against the Miami Hurricanes. Oh, and Will Smith smacked Chris Rock at the Oscars on Sunday night in case you didn’t hear about that. You know they had to talk about that. Don’t worry, there was plenty of hoops talk.
OK, let’s get to the other blue blood matchup. On the Carolina Conversations podcast with Shammond Williams, UNC legend Al Wood joined the show to talk about the wild ride to New Orleans. From losing at home to Pitt in mid-February to cutting down the nets of the South Region, this has been almost a Cinderella run of sorts for this blue blood. Two Tar Heels talk tourney.
Going down Tobacco Road, it’s the Dawkins on Duke podcast. Andre Dawkins and Lance Thomas were teammates on the 2010 National Championship team. The two discuss what it took to get to the Final Four and win it all and what this year’s team needs to do to win. Thomas recalls losing to VCU in 2007 as a freshman and then making it all the way to the top of the ladder after the confetti fell in Indianapolis in 2010. Does this Duke team have what it takes?
Box Score
Basketball can be told through the numbers. We take a look at some of the numbers from the last week of college hoops.
2.04 million. A 2-overtime game between NC State and UConn won by the Huskies in the NCAA women’s basketball tournament Elite 8 drew the largest audience for a non-Final Four game since Duke vs. UConn in 2006. (Sports Media Watch)
2,354. By defeating Providence in the Sweet 16, Kansas overtook Kentucky for most wins by a single program in men’s basketball by earning its 2,354th win. (CBS Sports)
100. The Sweet 16 win over Texas Tech notched Mike “Coach K” Krzyzewski his 100th in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, the first head coach to reach that milestone. He later went on to win #101 against Arkansas in the Elite 8. (The Athletic)
17. The men’s Final Four features teams that have won a combined 17 National Titles, the most in any Final Four since 1975. (CBS Sports)
9. The Big 10 conference sent 9 teams to the men’s NCAA Tournament with none reaching the Elite 8. This is the first tournament in which a conference has sent 9 teams and failed to reach that round. (ESPN Stats & Info)