Ultimate Guide to the 2018 Final Four of the Men's NCAA Tournament
From Loyola of Chicago's Sister Jean Dolores-Schmidt to Michigan's Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman, the 2018 men's NCAA Final Four is loaded with syllables and intriguing storylines.
But it's just too much to keep up with, right? Plus, with incessant news of players transferring, coaches coming and going and high school all-star games, it's tough to even separate the 2017-18 news from everything thereafter.
No need to sweat. We've got you covered.
Whether you're looking for info on free-throw rates and three-point shots or the Big Ten's national championship drought, this is your one-stop shop for the stories and topics you need to know about before the final weekend of the season commences.
Cinderella Still Dancing
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The national hysteria about Sister Jean has cemented Loyola-Chicago as one of the most memorable Cinderella stories in NCAA tournament history, regardless of whether the Ramblers are able to knock off the Michigan Wolverines.
But don't let the 98-year-old team chaplain distract you from the fact this is a darn good basketball squad that just so happens to play in a league (Missouri Valley) that lost its luster when Wichita State skipped town to join the American.
This isn't some underdog story of a team catching fire and riding that wave of momentum. And although the bracket did break in a way to give the Ramblers an easy draw to the Final Four, this isn't a situation in which a team got lucky and repeatedly ran into squads it was designed to beat. Rather, we're talking about a 32-win team that went toe-to-toe with four top-40 teams and proved it belongs.
Ranked fifth in the nation in effective field-goal percentage, Loyola-Chicago shoots just as well as both Kansas and Villanova. And at 63.5 points allowed per game in the tournament, the Ramblers have remained as impenetrable on defense as they were all season long.
As long as it can keep its turnovers under control, there's a good chance Loyola-Chicago becomes the first double-digit seed to ever play for the national championship. Perhaps the Ramblers could even be the unlikeliest champions in the history of the sport.
What's the Opposite of a Cinderella?
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Villanova isn't a blue-blood program because it doesn't have the deep history of a Kentucky, North Carolina or UCLA. But if you think any team has been better over the course of the last five seasons, you're only fooling yourself.
The Wildcats have finished in the top six of the AP poll in each of the last five years, earning three No. 1 seeds and a pair of No. 2 seeds in the NCAA tournament, including winning the title in 2016. They have an overall record of 134-16 since the start of the 2014-15 season, which means they have won more games in a four-year period than any other program in college basketball history.*
Focusing just on this season, Villanova spent the entire campaign ranked either No. 1 or No. 2 on KenPom.com. Even the dominantĀ 2012 and 2015 Kentucky teams spent a little bit of time outside the top two but not these Wildcats. Thanks to one of the best duos in the nationāJalen Brunson and Mikal BridgesāVillanova has looked the part of a national championship team for the past four-and-a-half months.
And while Kansas, Loyola-Chicago and Michigan each had a couple of close calls on the path to San Antonio, Villanova has an average margin of victory of 18.3 points in the tournament and has yet to have a game decided by fewer than 12 points.Ā Ā
If we end up getting Loyola-Chicago vs. Villanova in the national championship game, it would be as much of a David vs. Goliath story as when Butler nearly toppled Duke in 2010.
*They didn't play as many games per season when John Wooden and UCLA were on top of the world for more than a decade, but Villanova broke Duke's record of 133 wins from 1997-2001.
Can John Beilein Finally Win One?
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John Beilein has been successful at every stop of his career.
He got his Division I head-coaching start at Canisius in 1992. Within four seasons, he had taken the Golden Griffins to their only NCAA tournament since 1957. He then had five straight winning seasons at Richmond before heading to West Virginia and making the Mountaineers relevant for the first time in a couple of decades. And over the last 11 campaigns, he has taken Michigan to the NCAA tournament eight times, bringing the program back from the Fab Five scandal.
Beilein has averaged better than 20 wins in his 26 seasons and has gotten a reputation as a coach whose teams always seem to be much better in March than they were in November.
Yet, he has never won a national championship, and this is only his second trip to the Final Four.
Villanova's Jay Wright won a title two years ago and is already regarded as one of the best in the business. Same goes for Bill Self, who won a championship in 2008 and has guided Kansas to 14 consecutive Big 12 regular-season titles. And while Porter Moser would certainly love a natty, the coach is already a legend for getting Loyola-Chicago this far.
But Beilein has never gotten anywhere near the national respect he deserves, and that makes this final weekend more critical for him than any other coach. If Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman, Charles Matthews and Moritz Wagner bring their A-games, Beilein will finally join the club of coaches with a title.
Will Adjusted Defensive Efficiency Doom Kansas?
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If there's just one thing you should have learned from KenPomĀ over the years, it's that winning a national championship without an elite defense is effectively impossible.
Each of the last 16 NCAA tournament champions finished at No. 18 or better in adjusted defensive efficiency. Nine of them ended up in the top seven.
And before you point out that those defensive rankings inevitably improve over the course of six straight wins in the tournament, let's also note that each of those 16 champions began the tournament ranked No. 39 or better in adjusted defensive efficiency.
Three of the four national semifinalists are in great shape in that regardāMichigan (4th), Villanova (14th) and Loyola-Chicago (19th). But even after four wins, Kansas is still ranked 40th in adjusted defensive efficiencyĀ and would practically need to pitch a shutout against Villanova to eventually climb into the top 18.
Can Kansas break that trend by winning a title, or will that good-not-great defense doom the Jayhawks to a Final Four farewell?
San Antonio Will Be Guard City
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Small ball will be the name of the game at the Final Four.
Michigan is the only remaining team who shoots worse than 40 percent from downtown, and it's not like the Wolverines struggle in that department. Meanwhile, Loyola-Chicago is the only remaining team that doesn't attempt at least 41 percent of its shots from three-point range.
Both Villanova (Omari Spellman) and Michigan (Moritz Wagner) start centers who shoot better from three-point range than any other regulars on the roster.
Kansas starts a 6'8" shooting guard (Svi Mykhailiuk) as its effective power forward. And though Duncan Robinson doesn't typically start for Michigan, the 6'8" shooting guard does play more than 25 minutes per game as the small-ball 4.
Each team has at least one back-to-the-basket big man. Kansas' Udoka Azubuike, Michigan's Jon Teske, Villanova's Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree and Loyola-Chicago's Cameron Krutwig have combined to play more than 2,200 minutes this season without making a single three-pointer. For the most part, though, we're talking about teams who make their living along the perimeter.
Basically, if you like three-pointers and ball movement, you're going to love the 2018 Final Four.
The Big Ten's Big Drought
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The Big Ten has consistently been one of the best college basketball conferences in the country for many years. Dating back to 2001, this league has sent an average of 5.8 teams to the NCAA tournament. Only three times since 1985āthis season, 2004 and 2008ādid the Big Ten fail to have at least five teams invited to the Big Dance.
But some lot of good it has done for a league that hasn't won a national championship since Michigan State in 2000.
There have been plenty of close calls along the way. Illinois (2005), Indiana (2002), Michigan (2013), Michigan State (2001, 2005, 2009, 2010, 2015), Ohio State (2007, 2012) and Wisconsin (2014, 2015) combined to make 12 trips to the Final Fourāincluding one time each in a national championship game. However, the conference keeps falling short, while teams from the ACC, Big East and SEC rack up titles.
Can this Michigan team be the one that ends the drought?
The Wolverines are the favorites in the Final Four game against Loyola-Chicago, but they would almost certainly be the underdogs against either Kansas or Villanova in the battle for all the marbles.
Limited Whistles
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One of the most frustrating things about the NCAA tournament on an annual basis is the officiating. Far too often, great games or individual battles are marred by a few early whistles. (Cut to Gonzaga and Zach Collins fans nodding glumly.)
But there's good news this year. All four of these teams defend without fouling, and not one of them is particularly adept at drawing contact.
In free-throw rate on offense, Loyola-Chicago ranks 206th nationally. That's below the national average, but it's the highest among remaining teams. Michigan is 258th, Villanova is 281st and Kansas is 330th. And in terms of defensive free-throw rate, we have Kansas at 14th, Loyola-Chicago at 15th, Villanova at 29th and Michigan at 88th.
Those are a lot of numbers to throw at you, but the moral of the story is that free throws should be minimal, which means the flow of the games should be excellent.
The referees will probably still make sure we remember they are there with the occasional painfully long monitor review, but the prospect of clean games devoid of foul trouble is exciting.
International Affairs
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Every time a high school recruit decides to play overseas, the national media overreacts, suggesting that this could be the trend that ends college basketball.
Counterpoint: College hoops is importing way more than it is exporting. There are five significant players in this year's Final Four who are from either Africa or Europe.
Kansas has three of those players, one of which has become the biggest story of the week leading up to the national semifinals.
Udoka Azubuike is from Nigeria, and his mother has never seen him play basketball at any level. She and Kansas have been working to get her travel visa approved so that she can finally watch him on the game's biggest stage. The Jayhawks also brought in highly touted Mykhailiuk from Ukraine four years ago, and Silvio De Sousa is originally from Angola.
Villanova doesn't have any international athletes on its roster, but both Michigan and Loyola-Chicago boast one. Bruno Skokna was born in Croatia before becoming a key reserve for the Ramblers, and starting center Moritz Wagner came to the Wolverines from Germany.
That's nothing compared to last year, though. Between Gonzaga, Oregon and South Carolina, there were players from England, Israel, France, Japan, Poland, Gabon, Estonia and Senegal, not to mention several from Canada. At a global level, the state of the game appears to be quite strong.
Statistics courtesy ofĀ KenPom.comĀ andĀ Sports Reference.
Kerry Miller covers men's college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter,Ā @kerrancejames.Ā Ā
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