Is Men's College Basketball Headed for an 'All First-Timers' 2023 Final Four?

Whether you prefer to call it "parity," "anarchy" or "just another January in men's college hoops," the fact of the matter is I have no freaking clue who is going to win it all this season, and neither do you.

The favorite right now is Houston at +600 per DraftKings, but is anyone really sold on the Cougars winning a title?

Don't get me wrong. They'd be my pick if I had to bet a limb on it today, because that defense is some kind of special and, you know, defense wins championships. But they struggled at home with Kent State and UCF, scored 53 in a semi-home game (in Fort Worth) against Saint Mary's, lost at home to Alabama and play in what might be a one-bid league.

We've seen that story before. It's usually more efficient on offense, not as dominant on defense and called "Gonzaga," but it never actually wins it all as the favorite. (Though, the fact that the Final Four will be held in Houston could be an advantage for the Cougars.)

Kansas is No. 2 in the AP poll and tied for No. 2 in the betting odds at +1000, but the Jayhawks just lost a game Tuesday night, seem to love playing in games that come down to the final second and we haven't had a repeat national champion in men's college basketball since the Florida Gators won it all in 2006 and 2007.

Long story short, anything could happen in the 2023 NCAA tournament.

And that includes a scenario in which four programs earn their first-ever trip to the Final Four—something that hasn't happened since 1943.

Even three programs making the Final Four for the first time would be exceedingly rare, as that last happened in 1970 when Jacksonville, New Mexico State and St. Bonaventure all made it for the first (and still only) time.

However, four is feasible.

And atop the list of candidates is renowned football school Alabama.

AP Photo/Vasha Hunt

The Crimson Tide are ranked No. 4 in the latest AP poll, have won seven consecutive games by double digits and have been to 23 NCAA tournaments in program history.

Nary a Final Four, though, and they got smashed by Connecticut in 2004 in their only trip to the Elite Eight.

However, with Brandon Miller leading the way, a national title feels doable.

Miller is a skinny 6'9" with limitless range on his sweeter-than-honey shooting stroke. He has a nose for rebounds and is a key contributor to an excellent defense. There's a lot to like there.

And Miller is just one piece of the championship puzzle in Tuscaloosa. Alabama has a rock-solid eight-man rotation, which has drastically cut down on its biggest red flag as of late: Turnovers.

After averaging 16.6 giveaways through the first 13 games of the season, Alabama is sitting at 10.2 turnovers over its past five games. Keep that Achilles' heel protected against the likes of Missouri, Mississippi State and Tennessee, and it might be time to start talking about the Crimson Tide as the singular favorite to win it all.

Speaking of Tennessee, the ninth-ranked Volunteers are another "never been there" Final Four contender—one we wrote a full column about last week.

The TL;DR version of that is: Impeccable, championship-caliber defense, but can we trust the offense? And that was written before the Vols were held to 56 in a home loss to Kentucky and before Tuesday night's game against Mississippi State in which (sans starting seniors Santiago Vescovi and Tyreke Key) they scored 23 in the first half and 47 after the intermission.

If they can avoid one of those disastrous outings in March, though, Tennessee might finally make it to a national semifinal in what will be its 25th trip to the dance.

And though they're going to drop in the next rankings after a bad loss at DePaul on Wednesday night, the No. 8 Xavier Musketeers are also hoping to end one of the biggest Final Four droughts.

Only BYU (30) has been to more NCAA Tournaments with out reaching a Final Four than Xavier (28). But Sean Miller—who notably has been to seven Sweet 16s, four Elite Eights and zero Final Fours—has assembled quite the offensive juggernaut in his first year back with the Musketeers.

Sixth-year senior Souley Boum is the star of the show, but four of the five starters are averaging at least 14 points per game. (Fifth starter Adam Kunkel is no slouch at 10.4 points per game with a 38 percent three-point stroke.) Xavier almost beat both Duke and Gonzaga on neutral courts back in November and then won 11 consecutive games.

The X-Men are pretty much the opposite of Tennessee, in that there's no telling if we can trust their defense when it matters. Nine opponents have eclipsed 75 points against Xavier, the most alarming of which was Georgetown scoring 89. But the Musketeers still won seven of those nine games, because holding this team below 80 points can be darn near impossible.

Beyond that trio of AP Top 10 teams, there are five other currently ranked programs that have never been to a Final Four.

Two of them (No. 18 Charleston and No. 24 Florida Atlantic) are mid-majors that are quite unlikely to pull it off. But, hey, they're a combined 38-2 and neither one has lost since Nov. 11. Never say never.

The more likely candidates are No. 14 TCU, No. 17 Miami and No. 19 Clemson.

AP Photo/LM Otero

All three have suffered at least one reprehensible loss. TCU had that horrific home loss to Northwestern State one week into the season, Miami had a bad loss at Georgia Tech and Clemson had a pair of major letdowns against South Carolina and Loyola-Chicago.

If you don't feel comfortable trusting any of them, it's easy to understand why.

As of Wednesday morning, though, each of those three squads had at least four wins over KenPom Top 50 foes and has done much more good than bad as of late. TCU is pretty clearly the best of the bunch and has the most impenetrable defense, but do not sleep on Isaiah Wong and Norchad Omier carrying the Hurricanes on a deep run.

But wait.

There's more.

Saint Mary's isn't ranked, but the Gaels are the eighth-best team in the nation as far as KenPom is concerned. Similar story with Creighton, except the Bluejays are 14th in those tempo-free metrics. One of these years, Randy Bennett and/or Greg McDermott is going to break through and make a Final Four.

Or perhaps this is the year a Mountain West team finally shows up in March? Boise State, Nevada, New Mexico, San Diego State and Utah State all rank top-35 in the NET for what realistically could be a five-bid league, and none of those programs has ever been to a Final Four.

All told, that's 15 candidates, and we could get to 20 by tacking Arizona State, Missouri, Northwestern, Texas A&M and Virginia Tech onto the list.

Look, I know an "All First-Timers" Final Four is unlikely.

Last year's quartet of national semifinalists—Duke, Kansas, North Carolina and Villanova—was ridiculously loaded with all four programs boasting at least three national championships. We may be headed for a similar situation this year, with a Final Four of Kansas, UCLA, Connecticut and one of Duke/Indiana/Kentucky/North Carolina well within the realm of possibility.

But doesn't it just feel like we're headed for something even more chaotic than normal?

Maybe it's not an Alabama, Tennessee, Xavier and TCU/Miami/Creighton/Saint Mary's All First-Timers Final Four.

Maybe it is Houston—which has been to the most Final Fours (six) among programs without a national championship—winning it all practically within walking distance of campus.

Or maybe we get some sort of "Well, Shoot, They Literally Can't All Blow It" Final Four of Gonzaga, Purdue, Texas and Arizona.

Anything seems possible this year as we wait for anyone to separate from the pack.

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Kerry Miller covers men's college basketball and Major League Baseball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter: @KerranceJames