Like pizza and Curb Your Enthusiasm episodes, there are no bad NCAA men’s basketball tournaments. But some are better than others, and the 2025 tourney has only been pretty good—not pretty, pretty, pretttaaay good.
Shock value has been virtually nonexistent. Drama has been dormant. Cinderella left early. Power conferences have reigned. The first round was a blowout bloodbath, and while the subsequent rounds were more competitive they were also steeped in chalk and short on late-game tension.
In terms of no-doubt, “One Shining Moment” material, the list is short: Derik Queen’s (well-traveled) bank shot to beat the Colorado State Rams; the Houston Cougars’ immortal inbounds play to beat the Purdue Boilermakers; a Darrion Williams three-pointer to get the Texas Tech Red Raiders into overtime against the Arkansas Razorbacks.
But it’s not over yet, and the closing acts could elevate the entire tournament to a different level. San Antonio has delivered before, and is positioned to do it again. This Final Four is as big-time as it possibly gets, with a quartet of bona fide monster teams that have incredible talent and never wobbled all season. There are no flukes here. Not even a mild surprise.
This is just the second time since NCAA seeding went public in 1985 that all four No. 1 seeds have advanced to the Final Four. The other time it happened was also in San Antonio, and that one ended quite memorably: Mario Chalmers’s buzzer-beating three to force overtime for the Kansas Jayhawks against the collapsing Memphis Tigers, whereupon Kansas won its first title since 1988. Something similar this weekend would be just fine.
These four teams separated themselves at varying points in the season, with each of them at some juncture looking like the best in America. The Florida Gators started 13–0 with a group that was expected to be good—then quickly showed signs of greatness. The Auburn Tigers were 21–1 at one point against a ridiculous schedule, stacking Quad 1 wins like firewood. The Duke Blue Devils put a historic beating on the rest of the ACC. Houston is 30–1 since November, and the lone loss is by a single point in overtime to Texas Tech, a team that made the Elite Eight.
Three of the four won their conference tournaments and have all but forgotten how to lose. Houston’s winning streak is 17 games, Duke’s is 15, Florida’s is 13. And Auburn was the overall No. 1 seed, based on its entire body of work.
Beyond seeding, the convergence of these four in San Antonio is essentially the KenPom Super Bowl. Ken Pomeroy’s popular analytics site has never nailed it like this.
His top four teams are here (Duke, Houston, Florida and Auburn, in that order). The Blue Devils, Cougars and Tigers have been in KenPom’s top five from the start, while the Gators have been there since Jan. 22. Pomeroy began his predictive rankings in 1997 and had never had more than one team with a plus-35 or greater rating in a single season until this one—now he has four of them.
And the teams are great at both ends of the floor, virtually without statistical weakness. We’ll see if this holds true through Monday, but for now, KenPom has four teams—these four—in the national top 10 in both offensive and defensive efficiency for the first time since 2002, and just the fourth time in the 29-season history of his rankings. Duke is No. 1 offensively, Florida is No. 2, Auburn is No. 3 and Houston is No. 10. On the defensive end, Houston is No. 1, Duke is No. 4, Auburn is No. 8 and Florida is No. 10.
Pomeroy’s three highest-rated players are also in the Final Four (Duke’s Cooper Flagg, Auburn’s Johni Broome and Florida’s Walter Clayton Jr., in that order). The last time that happened was a decade ago (Frank Kaminsky, Jahlil Okafor, Karl-Anthony Towns). Fifth-year senior Broome, whose career began with the Morehead State Eagles, played his first college game when freshman Flagg was 13 years old. Clayton was more heavily recruited to play football than basketball.
Auburn and Duke haven’t even experienced any serious tournament duress yet. The Tigers have led all four tourney games for the entirety of the final 10 minutes. The Blue Devils can double that, leading for the entire second half of every NCAA game to date.
Houston led most of the game against Purdue in the Sweet 16, then found itself tied up in the final seconds before winning with the Milos Uzan to JoJo Tugler back to Uzan inbounds heroics. The Cougars were so shaken by that narrow escape that they absolutely obliterated the No. 2 seed Tennessee Volunteers for 40 minutes two days later.
Florida had a second-round battle with the two-time reigning champion UConn Huskies before prevailing late, then the Gators saw their Final Four lives flash before their eyes against Texas Tech in the regional final. Trailing by nine with three minutes to play makes for desperate times, but Florida displayed its clutch DNA by hitting big shot after big shot to survive and advance.
Beyond sheer excellence, there are compelling story angles with all four teams.
Houston has an argument to be considered the most accomplished program to have never won it all. The Cougars had great teams in the 1960s and ’80s that fell short, and this is their seventh Final Four in search of an elusive title. Kelvin Sampson, age 69, also would be the oldest championship coach if Houston wins it.
Duke has proved there is life—a good life—after Mike Krzyzewski. Is there a national championship, too? Jon Scheyer, a product of the glorious Coach K era who starred on Duke’s 2010 title team, has taken the baton and maintained the standard following a man who won five NCAA championships. The only box left to check is cutting down the nets Monday night.
Auburn is among the most immersive football schools in the country, but it has thrived in men’s basketball under Bruce Pearl. The Tigers’ first Final Four, in 2019, ended in heartbreak and controversy when the Tigers were called for fouling Virginia Cavaliers guard Kyle Guy shooting a three-pointer with 0.6 seconds left. Guy made all three free throws to cap a comeback from four points down in the final 10 seconds.
Florida, another football-first athletic program, has now advanced to the Final Four for the fourth straight decade under three different coaches—Lon Kruger in the 1990s, Billy Donovan in the 2000s and 2010s, and Todd Golden in the 2020s. Golden, who emerged unscathed from a strange and largely unexplained Title IX investigation earlier this season, is a rising star in the profession at age 39.
So a pretty good NCAA tournament arrives at what could be a really good Final Four. The first-round blowouts and chalky results will be largely forgotten if San Antonio nails the ending.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Men’s NCAA Tournament Shaping Up to Have Final Four Fireworks.
