If Wooden Award winner and soon to be #1 pick in the NBA Draft Cooper Flagg is as competitive as people say, he is never ever going to forget how his Duke team lost to Houston in their epic Final Four battle Saturday night.

Houston (51%) vs Florida – 7:50 PM CDT on CBS

No time for a comprehensive write-up today — work — so let’s talk for a minute about depth. Teams with lots of veterans and/or lots of talented players can bring in substitutes and get some production off of their bench. Teams like Duke & Houston would both be considered relatively deep. But a very good defense will severely limit that depth, exploiting the inadequacy of the replacements and/or convincing the coach through their own Eye Test results to cut short their minutes and rely more on the starters.

The chart below illustrates how this phenomenon played out in Houston-Duke. Generally solid substitutes Mylik Wilson & Terrance Arceneaux — who usually perform right around average for a Houston Cougar — were rendered entirely unproductive by the Blue Devils defense. Emanuel Sharp is simply a rock of consistency so he did what he was going to do anyway. And LJ Cryer broke out for another great game — his third of this tournament. He and the defense carried them to the comeback win.

We don’t have the Duke chart, but it tells a similar story in reverse: Houston severely limited contributions beyond Cooper Flagg, and coach Jon Scheyer could not get anything out of big men tandem Khaman Maluach & Patrick Ngongba. What appeared to be a pretty deep team was pruned down to Flagg, Kon Kneuppel and a bit of Maliq Brown by the swarming Houston defense.

Florida also seems like a deep team, with a higher quality of depth. Their top seven contribute at a higher level than a typical Gator squad — with Tempo Bias certainly contributing. Florida particularly benefits from rotating four productive bigs – starters 6’11” Alex Condon & 6’10” Rueben Chinyelu backed by subs 6’9″ Thomas Haugh & 7’1″ Micah Handlogten. Will Houston be able to trim all these trees and force Florida to ask more of Denzel Aberdeen?

Data courtesy Kenpom.com and Basketball Reference
Game Score metric created by John Hollinger detailed here
Plot format by Aaron Baggett
Inspiration from Ken Pomeroy
Inspiration from Rock M Nation

Team colors courtesy:
Benjamin S. Baumer and Gregory J. Matthews (2020). teamcolors: Color Palettes for Pro Sports Teams. R package version 0.0.4

The Women’s final on Friday night was anticlimatic, with South Carolina dominating Texas, and UConn dismantling UCLA. What lies ahead for the men? Well all four #1 seeds made the Final Four for only the second time in history, and the last time produced an utterly tragic result (kansas winning),, so we are prepared for the worst.

Florida (52%) vs Auburn – 5:09 PM CDT on CBS

With 3:14 remaining in their Elite Eight game, star forward JT Toppin of Texas Tech made a layup to put the Red Raiders up 75-66. and Florida’s dream season teetered. Over the next two minutes, Walter Clayton Jr assisted on two Thomas Haugh threes then made two threes of his own, one a ridiculous dribble out step back fadeaway. Florida made their free throws down the stretch and punched their ticket to San Antonio.

Clayton Jr is the Gators best player and currently #3 in KenPom Player of the Year. He’s expected to carry Florida. Haugh is the sixth-man who has far exceeded his normal output in the tournament, in particular in the Elite Eight. Alijah Martin is the steady veteran who has been there before (Florida Atlantic 2023). Martin did not play in the Gators’ 90-81 regular season win over SEC foe Auburn — Aberdeen started in his place — so Clayton and Haugh carried the load in that one as well.

After Michigan St lost to Auburn in the Elite Eight, Spartans coach Tom Izzo said in his interview he felt like they did a good job containing everything that Auburn can do….except Johni Broome was unstoppable. The chart below backs that up — Broome’s dominant performance carried all the other Tigers suffering through below-average games. Auburn got by the first three rounds with Broome not at his best, then he took over in round four.

Duke (57%) vs Houston – 7:49 PM CDT on CBS

Cooper Flagg is the newly-minted Wooden Award winner and will be the #1 pick in the NBA Draft in June. He was not very good in the Elite Eight against Alabama — 16 points, 9 rebounds but just 6-16 from the field with 4 turnovers — and it just didn’t matter. Last year we noted how UConn had all five of their starters who performed above the Kemba Walker / Shabazz Napier level. This year’s Duke team has three starters above the Jayson Tatum / Brandon Ingram level, and with Flagg up among fellow number one picks Kyrie Irving and Marvin Bagley III, the talent level of the Blue Devils is impressive and might be championship-level.

So how did this 35-3 juggernaut ever lose? Kentucky held them to 16% three-point shooting; Kansas limited their offensive boards and turned them over 16 times; Clemson somehow pounded it inside and controlled the glass on both ends.

Houston has been our bracket pick three years running, and the Cougars finally rewarded our loyalty with a Final Four run. Houston’s #1 defense goes up against Duke’s #1 offense. Houston has tons of experience and loads of Minutes Continuity (#7 per KenPom). Duke’s team just met one another, but they are huge and young and talented. Somehow 6’8″ J’Wan Roberts and 6’8″ Joseph Tugler have to battle to a draw the Duke giants 7’2″ Khaman Maluach and 6’11” Patrick Ngongba.

Data courtesy Kenpom.com and Basketball Reference
Game Score metric created by John Hollinger detailed here
Plot format by Aaron Baggett
Inspiration from Ken Pomeroy
Inspiration from Rock M Nation

Team colors courtesy:
Benjamin S. Baumer and Gregory J. Matthews (2020). teamcolors: Color Palettes for Pro Sports Teams. R package version 0.0.4

Second Round Sunday brought two defeats to the Never Been Kissed (NBK), and closed the book on the teams we have been tracking in this space. Fitting in a year dominated by the big conferences, in a tournament were all four #1 seeds would advance out of their regionals for only the second time ever, that we would see no teams advance to their first Sweet Sixteen since 1985.

Colorado St and Maryland played one of the more entertaining and exciting games of this tournament in the second round. The Rams jumped out to an early lead 24-12 after ten minutes of action, with the Terps steadying things a bit to go into halftime down just 37-30. In a nip-and-tuck second half, Colorado St went into a 1 for 8 shooting funk and were staring at elimination after Maryland’s Julian Reese (brother of Angel) hit two free throws with 22 seconds left to give the Terps a two-point lead. CSU’s Jalen Lake drained a three-pointer with six seconds left, giving the Rams the lead and giving us hope of a 2025 NBK Graduate. Maryland got the ball to midcourt, called a timeout, and gave it to freshman sensation Derik Queen to make the winning floating banker as time expired. The first buzzer beater of the tournament sent Maryland to the next round and Colorado St packing.

New Mexico versus Michigan St mirrored CSU-MD only so far as the underdog got off to a fast start. Michigan St played big with seven blocks and control of the boards and got the Lobos’ big man Nelly Junior Joseph in foul trouble. This game was a bit of a throwback as New Mexico was only 4 for 13 from three point range, and Michgan St only 4 for 15. (In the very next round, Alabama would set all sorts of records going 25 for 51 from three to trounce BYU).

Three of the four schools above were in the news immediately following these elimination games as the Coaching Carousel started to turn in earnest. Colorado St coach Niko Medved took the Minnesota job, formerly held by New Mexico coach Richard Pitino, who left to take the Xavier job. CSU filled their spot by promoting longtime Medved assistant, kU killer, and Norther Iowa legend Ali Farokhmanesh to the top spot. UNM looks to be turning to UC San Diego coach Eric Olen, keeping him within the NBK.

Maryland coach Kevin Willard left to take the Villanova job, and Buzz Williams departed Texas A&M to take over at Maryland — these are not NBK schools but we thought it was an interesting shuffle nonetheless.

Drake coach Ben McCollum departed for Iowa, and looks to be taking point guard and MVC Larry Bird Player of the Year Bennett Stirtz with him. The Bulldogs tapped South Dakota State coach Eric Henderson to fill in. Bryant coach Phil Martelli Jr upgraded to VCU after Ryan Odom left that job for Virginia.

Lastly, Saint Francis PA ended their run in the NBK by declaring their intention to drop down to Division II for basketball starting next year.

Here are the final NBK rankings for 2025 – we will see you again next year.

Data courtesy Kenpom.com and Basketball Reference
Inspiration from Rock M Nation and Bill Connelly

Team colors courtesy:
Benjamin S. Baumer and Gregory J. Matthews (2020). teamcolors: Color Palettes for Pro Sports Teams. R package version 0.0.4