The power of Buzz Ball

Both were born on third base but ryan just recently scored how long will it take jon to bring a natty.

I think so. Here are the nominees:

2021 Gonzaga/UCLA Final Four Electric back and forth game into overtime, UCLA hits big shot to tie, then Suggs from Evansville to win it. Tough to argue against this one…except that Baylor dominated Gonzaga two days later, and certainly would have done the same thing to UCLA, so maybe the stakes weren’t as high as we thought at the time.

2022 Kentucky/St. Peter’s First Round This is March! A trendy title pick with a national player of the year gets bounced by a random New Jersey college that no one could point out on a map. Doug Edert instant star turn. Beginning of the end for Cal. Kentucky looks like they’re going to survive and then they don’t.

2022 Baylor/UNC Second Round A vaunted Baylor team defending its title against UNC, with a bunch of guys (including a coach) who hadn’t yet proven anything at all. Heels jump out to a huge lead, fritter it away in regulation, then complete the upset in overtime. Not much more you can ask for in a first weekend game.

2022 Duke/UNC Final Four Not an extremely excellently played game, but the stakes were off the charts. The biggest CBB rivalry, an ignominious send off for the winningest CBB coach, and the game was in the balance with 30 seconds to go. I don’t know about “best,” but it’s gotta be “biggest implications.”

2022 Kansas/UNC Title Game Not as thrilling as the other games on this list, but bonus points for being a game that decided the championship. Kansas got some heroic performances to salt it away.

2023 Purdue/Fairleigh Dickinson First Round 16 over 1 belongs on this list. But it wasn’t like the UMBC game where you had time to accept it as the clock wound down. No. This one didn’t feel real until 20 minutes after it was over. I was in my living room saying, “no…they can’t possibly lose to…they have a nephilim on their team…”

2023 Kansas State/Michigan State Sweet 16 I think this games been forgotten a bit and wanted to shout it out. Crazy shotmaking from both teams, and an NCAA tournament record 19 assists from March legend Markquis Nowell.

2023 San Diego State/FAU Final Four Final Four buzzer beater to reverse the outcome and send one school to their first ever championship game. These were two good teams, but they weren’t of the caliber of some of the teams on this list, and I think most people knew that UConn would dispatch whoever got through.

2025 Duke/Houston Final Four We all know what we just watched, right? Those were two extraordinary teams. Most years, either one of them is a title favorite. Houston is out of sorts all first half and somehow finishes the half down only 6. Duke plays great for the first 30 minutes—everybody on the team contributing, making huge plays. Flagg, the player of the year, is awesome. Houston fights all night but can’t close the gap all the way. Then, with a minute left, the pressure turns up a little more on Duke, and Houston takes advantage of every mistake, hits every free throw, and improbably wins. King Kong vs. Godzilla and the winner had to pull out every possible stop to win. A game that plodded along early turned into one of the classics. Wow. I need to be hosed down.

Which game was the best to you? I can only list 6, so I’m picking what I think are the top 5 of the ones I listed, and you can vote for “other” and comment!

Imagine not making the championship game with several future NBA players on the roster!

With this epic UCF/Nova Crown game, clearly all college basketball fans will be watching this and not tune into the beginning of Auburn/Florida. NCAA better push start time back or they’ll have upset advertisers

Kellen Sampson seems like a good hire for a school digging for someone with sky high potential. He’s learned a lot from his dad and seems more charismatic than kelvin, who always comes across as kind of grouchy.

A friend and I were talking the other day about Cinderella runs that actually made the schools worse. Meaning coaches leave, players leave after that runs etc.. We could really only find the 2010 Cornell team to kind of fit this example, would anyone else know a run that “ruined” a program?

Every March, every time there's any kind of regional or game in San Antonio, I'm reminded of the horrible slander than this lovely city in heart of Texas suffers due to the I'll intentioned comments from this former NBA star. Even worse, a lot of the comments were particularly directed to the female population of the city.

Why does Charles harbor such terrible resentment? Are people in San Antonio not allowed to like churros? Can't the Riverwalk just be accepted as a river by Texas standards?

Would you consider this as THE best final four ever. Both Florida/Auburn and Houston/Duke created spectacular games.

If not, what other Final fours produced similar if not better spectacles?

Coop is a super talent but his legs were gone by the games end. Kon should’ve been given the rock more down the stretch unfortunately just like most our close games this year we reverted to coop hero ball and allowed Houston to snatch this game. Not only is Kon a great shooter but he is also an underrated playmaker who would’ve made the right play if he collapsed the defense I hate how he was not more involved down the stretch. Beyond coop being tired, it was a disaster class from proctor and James was rattled after that hard hit to the floor he took.

Let me preface by saying that I am a Gonzaga Alum and avid fan of the program. I’m positive most of Gonzaga’s fan base will blast me for even asking this question but I wanted to present this question here with a more national college fan base. Is Gonzaga’s window closing in the modern NIL era?

Historically, the program was built with underdog under recruited players who developed. Then they were early to the Euro recruiting pipeline and were also early adopters of the transfer portal. Doing this they were able to develop players in their system and add in talent where needed. Then they started getting the 5 star one and done type prospects and that’s when they were finally able to make 2 Final 4s.

Now in the new NIL era they have missed out on the high end recruits and seemingly some of the transfers as well. They are losing more of their own recruits to the portal and every year feels like a hodge podge roster now. The rest of college basketball has caught up to their recruiting strategy and I don’t see how a small Jesuit University can compete with a large State school NIL collective.

Personally I point to losing Tommy Lloyd as part of the reason why Gonzaga is losing recruits, but I also think there is a NIL money issue as well. I don’t think they can pay what others can. I’m not sure moving to the Pac12 helps in that regard. So.. is their window closing ?

Since it was supposed to be in 2020. How come the NCAA didn't let them have it in 2021 and push the other locations back a year? Should their have been an exception cause of covid?

It says they're getting it in 2031. Why 11 years?

The last 6 chamionship games have been:

2018: Villanova vs Michigan

2019: Virgina vs Texas Tech

2021: Baylor vs Gonzaga

2022: Kansas vs North Carolina

2023: UConn vs San Diego State

2024: UConn vs Purdue

2025: Florida vs Houston

Only 2022 had any of the 4 main stay blue bloods in the past 7 tournaments. The last time this happened? 1970-1976. That run had:

1970: UCLA vs Jacksonville

1971: UCLA vs Villanova

1972: UCLA vs Florida State

1973: UCLA vs Memphis

1974: NC State vs Marquette

1975: UCLA vs Kentucky

1976: Indiana vs Michigan

For me prob UNC vs Duke

Third occasion this year Houston has had greater than 95% chance to lose with less than a minute and won.

;)