SAN ANTONIO — They’re all gathered now, No. 1 seeds as far as the eye can see. A Final Four with lots of bells and whistles. How to watch this weekend when they start throwing shiny numbers at one another in the Alamodome?
Here are 17 suggestions.
Count the stars. Walter Clayton Jr, became Florida’s first-ever first-team All-American. Johni Broome is the first Auburn player ever to be a consensus All-American. On the other side of the blueblood line, Cooper Flagg became Duke’s 25th consensus All-American.
Brace for more SEC-rules-the-world talk. The conference has supplied half of the men’s Final Four and half the women’s. One number to consider, if it comes down to Auburn or Florida vs. Duke for the championship: The SEC was 30-4 this season against the ACC. “It was a battle every day, but that’s what made it fun,” Florida’s Will Richard said about life in the SEC this season. “You know you had to bring your best every time you stepped on the court and that’s what players dream of.”
Choose sides of the generation gap, since in each game it’s a Social Security-eligible coach against someone who could be his son.
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There’s Houston’s Kelvin Sampson at 69 vs. Duke’s Jon Scheyer at 37. “I coach against my son Kellen in scrimmages all the time,” Sampson said. “He’s always kicking my butt. So I’m used to being beaten by younger guys.”
It’s Auburn’s Bruce Pearl at 65 against Florida’s Todd Golden at 39. “Kelvin and I better take advantage of it this time because we’re clearly on the back nine,” Pearl said. “I’m not on the 18th hole yet, but we’re getting closer.”
There are connections that cross the difference in years. Pearl gave Golden one of his first jobs.
“I know he’s incredibly proud of me. I’m incredibly grateful for him and his family and the opportunities they provided for me,” Golden said.” I would not be here if I didn’t have my relationship and experience working with and being around Bruce and his son Steven. A little bit of a full-circle moment for both of us. When the ball goes up on Saturday, it’s going to be pretty cutthroat. Until then, there will be a lot of love shown. A surreal moment for sure.”
When Scheyer got the Duke job, he wanted to find a respected coach and program for his first scrimmage. He called Sampson at Houston. “I’ll tell you how good Jon Scheyer has been,” Sampson said on Thursday. “Nobody talks about him replacing Coach K anymore. He’s Jon Scheyer. He’s got his team in the Final Four.”
If Duke beats Houston, Scheyer will have 90 wins in his first three seasons. More than anyone ever in Division I.
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Sampson likes having young whippersnappers share the stage. “I think it’s great for the game because the game should always be about the future. We should honor the past, but we shouldn’t live in the past. Sometimes we do that too much. I saw that at Houston. All people ever talked about at Houston when I got there was Phi Slama Jama. I’m thinking, none of the kids that I’m recruiting nor their parents have ever heard of that. Let’s honor those guys. But for God’s sake, don’t live in the past.”
Predict who gets their breakthroughs because not a coach in this field has ever won a game at the Final Four.
Admire the longevity of J’Wan Roberts, who in this age of player migration has been a Houston Cougar long enough to have won 148 games. He’s lost only 23. “As much as I want to take credit for that I give a lot of credit to my coaches and my teammates,” he said.
Note that Golden, Pearl and Scheyer have at least one thing in common — they are all members of the Jewish Coaches Association.
Savor the rarity of an intraconference game in the Final Four. Auburn and Florida will be the first SEC teams to have one. It’s happened only 11 times with other conferences, the most recent was Duke vs. North Carolina in 2022.
Auburn and Florida met once during the season and Florida won 90-81. “Nobody cares about any revenge, that’s not our focus.” Auburn’s Dylan Cardwell said Thursday. “We have to win games if you want to put your name in the history books.”
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Go down memory lane with Duke. Saturday will be only the second time in history the Blue Devils have played on April 5. The first was the 2010 national championship game when the Blue Devils beat Butler 61-59. Scoring 15 points with six rebounds, five assists, two blocks and a steal for Duke that night was Jon Scheyer.
Don’t miss the latest sign of the transfer portal age. Going into this season, only two players had ever appeared in the Final Four with two different schools — Bob Bender for Indiana and Duke in the 1970s, and Steve Krafcisin for North Carolina and Iowa in 1977 and 1980.
There are three in San Antonio. Florida’s Alijah Martin scored 26 points for Florida Atlantic in its 72-71 loss to San Diego State in 2023. Duke reserve Mason Gillis played 48 minutes off the bench for Purdue at last April’s Final Four. Houston’s LJ Cryer played three minutes for Baylor in the 2021 Final Four. The message of their journeys in the transfer portal world? “You’ve got to stick with it, put your head down stay in the gym and get better,” Martin said. “You never know where you’ll be at in six months.”
Admire Auburn’s road here. The Tigers have played 15 games this season against opponents who advanced to the Sweet 16. They’re 11-4. They have played every other team who is now in San Antonio, beating Houston by five, losing to Duke by six and Florida by nine. 2014 Florida is the only other team in history to have played all the other Final Four participants during the regular season.
Ponder if history repeats itself. The KenPom ratings began in 1996 and this year’s Duke team carries the second-highest ranking ever. The only better number belonged to the 1999 Blue Devils — who were upset in the title game by UConn.
Commiserate with Auburn when it’s mentioned how the Tigers’ first Final Four ended in 2019, Virginia beating them on three Kyle Guy free throws in the last second, after what many claim was a missed double-dribble call.
Cardwell, a future Auburn recruit, was watching on television that night. “Virginia double-dribbled y’all. So it’s a fake, Mickey Mouse championship.”
Steven Pearl, assistant coach and Bruce’s son, watched from the bench. “Brutal, to be honest,” he said of the moment. He stood in the locker room Thursday and recounted every play in the final 20 seconds, then stopped himself with sarcasm. “I don’t remember it detail for detail obviously. It’s not something that haunts me in my dreams.”
“To actually sit down and make myself watch it, it took a year or two,” he said about looking at the tape. “It was disappointing, but I think it lit a fire for why we’re doing this.”
Be on the lookout for signs of Houston’s defense taking a toll on Duke’s high-octane offense. The Cougars allow an average of under 26 points a game in the first half. Tennessee had 15 at halftime last weekend. “It’s frustrating,” Houston’s Milos Uzan said of facing his team’s defense. “Even in practice when I’m going against these guys, it’s frustrating.”
Scheyer noticed that in his film study. “Haven’t slept much. That’s a credit to Houston,” he said on Thursday. “But I’ll force myself to the next couple nights”
Understand the extraordinary revival Kelvin Sampson has done at Houston. The Cougars defeated Virginia 49-47 in overtime in the 1984 Final Four to advance to their second consecutive national championship contest, but it would be 34 years before they won another NCAA Tournament game. Sampson ended the dry spell in 2018 and has won 18 tournament games since.
Wonder how bare-knuckles the family basketball games are at the Knueppel home in Wisconsin. Duke freshman Kon Knueppel comes from a family that has scored more than 4,500 career points in college basketball. He has 547 so far, his father Kon scored 2,064 as the second all-time leading scorer for Wisconsin Lutheran and his mother Chari is Green Bay’s all-time leading scorer with 1,964. Dad, mom and son go into Saturday with a family career average of 17.5 points a game. By the way, there are four more younger brothers coming.
Marvel again at the power of this all-No. 1 seed field. It is so loaded, Pearl could make a bid for Auburn — the top-seeded team in the entire tournament — to be the upstart here Thursday and nobody giggled. “We come in as the overall No. 1, but we’re probably considered the fourth-best team here right now. There is nothing new. I prefer the underdog role rather than having to prove that we’re as good as we say we are. So we’re going to take that underdog role into the Final Four and see if we can capitalize on it.”
Applaud at some of the remarkable stats represented on the court.
Auburn is the only team to beat Houston in regulation this season and that was five months ago.
Auburn’s Broome is the only player in DI history with 2,500 career points, 1,500 rebounds and 400 blocks. He had a double-double before halftime in both regional games the past weekend.
This quartet is 90-10 in the 2025 calendar year. Duke and Houston are 49-2. “Those are tough teams to beat. So are we,” Houston’s Uzan said.
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Houston has taken the nation’s best field goal defense percentage into six NCAA tournaments in a row.
Florida became only the fifth team in history to beat two different AP No.1 teams in the same season, defeating Tennessee and Auburn. It’s possible the Gators could make it three if they play Duke.
Duke’s Sion James and freshman Cooper Flagg share the same starting lineup. When James played his first college game in 2020, Flagg was just 13 years old.
Houston has more Big 12 season and tournament titles (3) than it has years in the league (2). The Cougars are the first team since 1922 to join a major conference and win its first two season titles.
UCLA destroyed No. 1 Houston 101-69 in the 1968 Final Four. The biggest takedown of a top-ranked team in the 57 years since Florida’s win over Tennessee, 73-43, in January. 25 days later, the Gators lost to the Vols’ 64-44.
Florida had a 27-0 run this season against Wichita State. Auburn had a 17-0 run against Michigan State in the Elite Eight. Duke has had 39 runs of 10-0 or more this season.
Saturday will be only the second meeting ever between Duke and Houston. It’ll be the 177th between Auburn and Florida.
Lastly, in a Final Four laden with older players and young phenoms who’ll be headed for the NBA draft soon, appreciate the urgency that is pushing all four teams. Auburn, for instance, starts four seniors and a grad student.
“This is the last chance we have. We’re all old guys,” Cardwell said.
“This is it. We’re running out of one shining moments,” Bruce Pearl said. “We do it now, or like Dylan Cardwell said, this is the last free breakfast. Every morning, he’s been prepared to wake up and not have a free breakfast. We want Dylan to continue to eat free. There’s a level of desperation knowing tomorrow could be our last game every single time for this group. They don’t want this to end.”
No one here does. But it will Monday night.
