Madness: The Only Team To Have A More Dominant Run To The Final 4 Than The 2023-24 UConn Huskies Didn't Actually Win The National Championship
Michael Reaves. Getty Images.Uconn? More like, UCant. Ever beat this team. I don't think I've ever watched an Elite-8 game and thought a mercy rule should be called. Not for the game. That's happened. For the tournament.
Sorry Purdue. I know you're also a 1-seed and finally decided to stop shitting the bed in March but go the fuck home. When Clingon haphazardly rose to stop a dunk cold in it's tracks and then strolled along down the court with no real urgency to posterize a little child wearing orange, that's when things went from embarrasing to "oh, this is what it would look like if an NBA team played the best team in college". Imagine if that second half 25-0 run started off the game?
Anyway - to my stats machine I went to look for any indication that this tournament shouldn't be stopped dead in its tracks. And I found one. That's right - one. Not two. One example of a team that is doing what UConn is doing that didn't win it all.
Let's explore.
We'll start here. I ran the combined margin of victory for all NCAA teams since 1980 (field of 48 teams or more) for their first four games of a tourney. This includes all teams that at least made the Elite-8. Gonna be honest, pretty surprised to see that only two of the top-seven ended up winning it all with 2024 UConn removed. All with 100-point combined victory margins or higher.
Interestingly, even UConn themselves have found… themselves… in a similar position going back to 2009. With only ten points less in combined victory margin, they didn't even make the championship game after losing to Michigan State. But here's the thing. Most of this win margin was from Round 1 when they mocked the Mocs of Chattanooga 103-47. That's 56 of your 101 right there.
So let's try another data pull. Screw Round 1. You know what? Screw Round 2. Let's see where this year's UConn ranks in victory margin only for the Sweet-16 and Elite-8 combined:
And there's the team we've been searching for. The only team with a greater victory margin in rounds 3-4 than 2024 UConn who didn't win it all. And yes, also the team with the greatest win margin in their first four games as well.
1993 Kentucky.
It makes sense that being so dominant in the middle rounds when the teams faced were good enough to win their last two is a good indicator of who might win the championship. So seeing that four teams out of the best five won it all is no suprise. So what happened to Kentucky?
It's pretty simple. And understandable. This #1 seeded Kentucky team led by Jamal Mashburn with two other future NBA players crusied by Rider and Utah in the opening rounds before dismantling #5 seeded Wake Forest and #3 seeded Florida State to earn their Final Four ticket.
Then they ran into the buzzsaw. Michigan. Not just any Michigan. The Fab Five Michigan. What I've heard been called the best game they played as a group. And this one came down to the wire which you can watch in it's entirety on YouTube with none other than Jim Nantz on the call.
Amazing what that team could do when it had timeouts left to spare. Michigan would go on to lose in the final when they did not have timeouts left to spare.
But back to this year. 2024. What team could possibly be on the level of the Fab Five to challenge UConn? I for one, do not see one. Purdue has a tree and some long range archers, but they are no Fab Five. Tennessee? Alabama? That's cute. Duke? I don't think so.
Needless to say - I'm now in on UConn champion future at -205 on DraftKings. #DKPartner.
