Chalk Madness Continues

CoachDay
Mar 31
2 min read

For the first time since 2008, we have a Final Four of all 1 seeds.

And so continues the chalk madness of March in 2025. Again, I’m being told, “Oh, we’re set up for some all-time games!” Well these better be three of the best games I’ve seen all decade. We’ve been bamboozled the past three rounds. We were told the Round of 32 would be full of exciting finishes...We got 3 out of 16 games within two possessions.

Then...okay, okay, you’ll love this, as we were drilled for days with"The Sweet 16 will be insanely competitive!" Then we got to watch just 2 out of 8 games that came down to the last minute or OT. OHHH wait! It was the Elite 8 games that were supposed to be legendary, right? We got 1 game that came down to the final minute out of the 4... including two complete snoozers.

I’M TIRED OF THIS! Can we just call it how it is? This might be the most boring tournament in years. I get that not every game is going to be a buzzer-beater,but let’s talk about the actual quality of basketball.

In the freaking ELITE 8 I had to watch:

Alabama turn the ball over like a JV team
Tennessee forget how to score
And Michigan State chuck 3s like an AAU team on Court 7 on a Sunday morning

Okay… but here we are now. A Final Four of all 1 seeds, and all four are in the all-time Top 10 of KenPom. That means I should be preparing for the best-played three games of an NCAA Tournament in years.

It should be: Competitive, Exciting, and well-coached basketball to look forward to. We get the #1 offense vs. the #1 defense on one side,and two SEC rival programs on the other. This is ideal... in theory. But I’m not getting my hopes up.

This tournament has taught me to expect games to be either:

A blowout
A game where one team takes their foot off the gas the last two minutes,making the final margin 6–9 when it was 12–15 all game

I’m just going to mentally accept the reality that Duke is going to win in UConn fashion beating everyone by 10–20 all tournament. And then, of course, we’ll have to hear it from the insufferable Dukies, just like we did from the UConn junkies the past couple of years.

Now you might ask, “Well then who do you want to see win?” They’re all #1 seeds, so there’s no true underdog. Okay, yes, you’re right. But Houston would be a cool story:A team’s team that brings it full energy on defense, no lottery picks...just dudes who play their butts off.

Any other year, I think they could do it—maybe even against those UConn squads. But Duke is going to be an insane task. Kelvin Sampson will need to pull off the coaching performance of the decade, to say the least.

Anyway, here’s to hoping for: