This year’s edition of the NCAA Tournament disappointed fans who starved for March Madness upsets. We were told the lack of upsets would make for better games down the stretch. Four No. 1 seeds met in San Antonio with a National Championship on the line and produced an all-time Final Four.
The first game was exciting, but pails in comparison to what unfolded in the final minutes of Houston vs. Duke. The Cougs never played particularly well, but they hung around, it just didn’t look like they had enough in the tank. After all, Duke was…
- Up by 14 at 8:15.
- Up 9 at 2:15.
- Up 6 at 1:15.
Houston cut the deficit to six points when Cooper Flagg hit a three that felt like the dagger. If that wasn’t enough, Joseph Tugler received a technical with a minute to play for knocking the ball out of the inbounder’s hands. We learned last night that you need more than two daggers to kill Kelvin Sampson’s team.
The best offensive team in the KenPom era made one field goal in the final ten minutes and scored zero points in the final 75 seconds, opening the door for an improbable comeback. Houston used full-court pressure to methodically chip away at the Duke lead. Instead of fouling, they forced turnovers and hit their own foul shouts. Emanuel Sharp hit the three-pointer that made the comeback plausible. J’Wan Roberts, a 60% free throw shooter, buried two from the charity stripe to give Houston the lead. It capped off a 7-0 run that lasted only 15 seconds.
Cooper Flagg had a chance to win it. As you saw so many times this year, he did not. The National Player of the Year failed again in the clutch, missing just short off the front of the rim. Houston won 70-67 in an all-time college basketball comeback.
Tell ’em, Kelvin Sampson
An all-time comeback calls for an all-time postgame interview. The Houston head coach delivered.
“No one ever loses in anything as long as you don’t quit.” He added: “I hear what people say. Duke this. Duke that. Jon Scheyer is awesome, but don’t sleep on Houston. Don’t sleep on Houston. We went 34-4 and not playing in the Toy Poodle league. We went 19-1 in the Big 12!”
No school has more Final Four appearances without a National Championship than Houston. They are 1.5-point underdogs against Florida in their third title game appearance. The total is 140.5
We Gotta Talk About That Dunk
For a good chunk of my life, I never thought I’d see a better dunk in a Final Four setting than what James Young did to UConn in the 2014 National Championship Game. Alijah Martin convinced me otherwise. The Florida Gator is a high-flyer who does not shy away from contact. He did that in the most authoritative way Saturday night in San Antonio. What did that poor rim do to him? “SEND IT IN!”
OH MY GOODNESS ALIJAH MARTIN POSTER
#MarchMadness @GatorsMBK pic.twitter.com/JFyVsSaOT1
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) April 6, 2025
Auburn led by eight at intermission, but Florida’s defense gave the Tigers nothing easy in the second half. Walter Clayton Jr. had 34 points in the 79-73 win to become the first player since Larry Bird in 79 to score 30 in consecutive Elite Eight and Final Four games.
Kentucky Finds a Point Guard in the Transfer Portal
The transfer portal had Big Blue Nation’s head spinning early Saturday morning. It started with bad news. Yaxel Lindeborg, the most coveted forward in the transfer portal, picked Michigan over the Cats. You could feel the anxiety boiling around the Kentucky basketball fanbase. Fortunately, Mark Pope did not let that feeling linger for long.
Jaland Lowe, a 6-foot-3 point guard from Pitt, is transferring to Kentucky. A Third-Team All-ACC selection last year, he averaged of 16.8 points, 5.5 assists, 4.2 rebounds, and 1.8 steals in 35.4 minutes as a sophomore. The Texas native shot 37.6 percent from the field, 26.6 percent from deep, and 88.6 percent from the free throw line. He has two years of eligibility remaining.
Ranked as one of the top point guards available in the transfer portal, Jack Pilgrim, Zack Geoghegan, and Jacob Polacheck broke down what Lowe is bringing to Kentucky and what it means for Mark Pope’s portal recruiting class.
Make sure you are LOCKED IN for Transfer Portal SZN. Join KSR+ to get bonus coverage of the Cats, including the latest recruiting and roster intel. Just $1 for a week.
A New WBB Champion is Crowned
It isn’t a battle of No. 1 seeds, but it feels like it. UConn will play South Carolina for a National Championship. These two teams battled for a title in 2022, with the Gamecocks taking down Paige Bueckers in her hometown of Minneapolis. She gets a shot at revenge, even though Dawn Staley’s squad has had the upper hand more often than not as of late, winning five of the last seven matchups. The National Championship tips off this afternoon at 3:00 PM EST on ABC.
This is a Real Photo from the Final Four
Dari Nowkhah is not a tall guy. Olivier Rioux is a very tall guy. This is a buddy cop show I would watch.
Kentucky Baseball Loses Heartbreaker
Kentucky was covered in inches of rainfall all weekend, yet some how, the Bat Cats were able to get in a three-game series with Ole Miss and it was a doozy.
Kentucky walked off the first game of a Friday doubleheader in the tenth inning. Ole Miss hit a two-run home run in the ninth to win game two. On Sunday, the Rebels escaped with a 5-4 win in the 12th inning. Luke Hill hit a two-run home run to secure the series victory for Ole Miss.
The Bat Cats had their chances to secure the series victory. Kentucky stranded 10 base-runners and the game-winning run was thrown out at home plate in the 11th inning.
We have a Kentucky Derby Favorite
Get ready to learn Journalism. No, you don’t have to take JOU 101 to learn this year’s Kentucky Derby favorite. Trained by Mike McCarthy, Journalism didn’t have his best stuff but found enough in the tank to rally from three wide around the final turn for a close win in the Santa Anita Derby. Journalism now has four straight wins, and the last three were graded stakes.
In Journalism’s previous start, he took down Rodriguez. The Bob Baffert horse was impressive in the Wood Memorial, going wire-to-wire to win New York’s premier Kentucky Derby prep race. The field is still far from set. The Blue Grass Stakes will showcase a stacked field in the postponed race on Tuesday.
A Year Without Thunder Over Louisville
Thunder Over Louisville has been one of the nation’s top fireworks displays every year since its debut in 1991. Unfortunately, Ohio River floodwaters have forced this year’s event to be canceled. COVID was the only other event that canceled the pre-Derby fireworks show.
Timing was not on Thunder’s side this year. It’s typically held two weeks before the Kentucky Derby. The only exception is when Easter and Passover are two weeks before the Derby. That’s this year. Another week to let the area dry out may have given them a shot, but it’s too late to move around an event so large. We’ll have to find some bottle rockets next weekend to kick off Derby instead.
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