This Final Four has to deliver

The matchups are historic. They better be worth it

Photo credit: USA Today

We watched the Florida-Texas Tech game at a bustling beer garden in D.C. Saturday night, by chance a few feet away from your regulation beer-hall-sized table full of young Florida fans, and what started as mere amusement became an experience: pathos, panic, the comeback, the Walter Clayton shots. It was exhilarating. It reminded us of tournament viewing experiences gone by, of past years watching great off-day games with friends, just before the realization that essentially none of what happened over the weekend, here in 2025 — save, maybe, Texas Tech’s win over Arkansas — inspired that same emotion.

The same was true of the first weekend. There were no overtimes in the first weekend. There were few upsets. There were even fewer truly quote-unquote great games, at least by NCAA Tournament standards. There was a lot of good college basketball, of course, the kind of quality we’ve been giddily enjoying all year. Sometimes tournament chaos is mistaken for gravitas. The first weekend lacked both.

We shrugged this off as a forgivable prelude to the glories of a chalky Sweet Sixteen — the best teams of a great college hoops season colliding in the most important moments. Who wouldn’t love that? Stop whining, casuals! There was zero doubt this configuration of 16 elite teams would produce a weekend of amazing performances. Maybe the chalk would win out; it wouldn’t be for a lack of resistance.

Now we think this: The 2025 Final Four better be worth it.

This Final Four is mathematically, and empirically, the strongest foursome in modern college basketball history. Duke, Houston, Florida and Auburn all rank among the 10 best college basketball teams of the KenPom era (i.e. since 1996-97, the capture date of Pomeroy’s first season), which sounds ridiculous but is quite provably true: