These were the teams regarded as Final Four long shots.Īs college basketball stylistically transformed through many eras and into a new century, a constant rule remained: Mid-major teams did not win four games in the NCAA Tournament. There was nothing about Vegas that was synonymous with mid-major. Four years after that, UNLV won a national title behind a Hall of Fame coach and one of the most talented, intimidating starting fives in college basketball history. LSU, a founding program of the SEC, was an 11 seed that broke through to the national semifinals a year after Nova. Villanova, a bona fide Big East power with a future top-10 pick, was seeded eighth but became national champs in '85.
In the modern tournament era (since 1985, when the field expanded to 64 teams) late March and early April were only available on the calendar to the sport's richest and biggest. Double-digit seeds dramatically cutting down aristocrats. For decades, those flares of surprise were contained to the corners of a few opening-weekend thrillers. The charm of the bracket lies in how we always allow ourselves to be shocked even when we know the shock is coming - it's just a matter of who and when. The NCAA Tournament is more than 75 years old, yet every year it gives us something we've never seen before.
