Prior to the 1994 Final Four, there was only one other occasion when a sitting president had been on hand to watch his home state team play for a championship. That was in 1980, when Jimmy Carter watched Georgia football beat Notre Dame in the Cotton Bowl. Bill Clinton duplicated the “feat” in 1994 when […]
The Kansas Jayhawks had won the national championship in 1988, under the leadership of Larry Brown and the star performance of Danny Manning. But Brown’s leadership also put the program on NCAA probation and he skipped town when Manning graduated that same year. The Jayhawks bottomed out and had to be rebuilt. It was Roy Williams who did the rebuilding and the 1991 NCAA Tournament was his coming-out party.
Jerry Tarkanian, head basketball coach at UNLV, was a character seemingly straight out of Damon Runyon, right down to his “Tark The Shark” nickname. Tark had been chasing college basketball nirvana for a long time. He’d brought favored teams to the Final Four in 1977 and 1987, but come up short. The 1990 UNLV basketball was one that had the horses to go the distance and Tark proved to be an able jockey.
The 1989 Michigan basketball team was loaded with talent, from All-American forward Glen Rice to talented sophomore Sean Higgins, to the low post duo of Terry Mills and Loy Vaught to their fine point guard Rumeal Robinson. But after a third-place finish in the Big Ten, they looked ready to go into the books as an underachieving disappointment.
…It was a most improbable ride to a Final Four. A #6 seed had gone through the bracket playing no one seeded higher than fourth (Kansas State)
Rick Pitino and Billy Donovan have each made their mark on college basketball history. Pitino coached three Final Four teams at Kentucky, including a 1996 national championship. He went on to take Louisville to the Final Four in 2005 and 2012, and won the 2013 NCAA Tournament.
Donovan took over the Florida program, made the Final Four in 2000 and won consecutive national titles in 2006-07. The 1987 NCAA Tournament was where each one first made their mark and they did it together
The development of the NCAA Tournament as a time of Madness had taken place in phases since 1975, a year that marked both the end of the UCLA dynasty and the inclusion of multiple teams from each conference in the event. The 1983 N.C. State basketball team represented the culmination of that development
Today, Kentucky and Duke are synonymous with the term “bluebloods” in, but when they met in the national championship game at the 1978 Final Four in St. Louis, the two programs couldn’t have been further apart.
The 1977 Marquette basketball team had come off a strong run in 1976 that ended in a tournament loss to Bob Knight’s undefeated Indiana team in a regional final. Al McGuire, later to gain fame as an NBC commentator was the head coach. McGuire was out of New York, colorful, witty and bombastic and in the days before the Big East got control of the New York area, was able to successfully recruit the Big Apple and get talent back to the Midwest
What happened on Monday night in Lexington was nothing short of electric. Villanova played the game of its life.
The Virginia basketball program was at the forefront of the national stage—not just for college basketball, but sports overall, when 7’4” center Ralph Sampson played there from 1980-83. Sampson was considered one of the best to ever play the game and all eyes were on him to see if this freak of nature could lead Virginia to a national title. The Cavaliers never got to that lofty goal—indeed March disappointments were to become routine. But the 1981 NCAA Tournament at least saw Sampson’s Cavs reach the Final Four.
Never before, at least in the modern history of the NCAA Tournament, had all four #1 seeds advanced to the Final Four. 2008 was the year that broke the mold, and when the four power teams of college basketball came to San Antonio, they produced an epic finish.