Why Villanova will win the Final Four

By foxsports
Published

How are you picking your Final Four champion? Are you going with the best team? (How'd that work out for you, Kansas backers?) Going for a second-seeded star? (You know who I'm looking at, people who crossed off five bracket lines when Michigan State lost.) Opting for a formerly high-ranked team that might surprise? (Maryland will never win a title in the Big Ten. This is fact.) Or going UConn style for the big upset? (I suppose you're still alive with Syracuse, but know that 1/3rd of your winnings will be tithed to the NCAA as punishment for all the rules the Orange didn't know they were breaking.)

No, you can't use feel or predictive powers when guessing the NCAA champion. You have to use that tried and true method used by everyone from Pythagoras to the tutor of a UNC football player: math, history and logic. Buckle up to learn who's going to win the 2016 NCAA tournament. (Although I fear the headline may have given it away.)

(Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)

FACT NO. 1: Eight of the last nine times one or more No. 1 seeds have made the Final Four, a No. 1 seed cut down the nets. (Champion: North Carolina)

FACT NO. 2: Only once in the past 13 years has a senior won the Final Four's Most Outstanding Player (that was Shabazz Napier for UConn two years ago). And given that the MOP most often goes to stars, this is bad news for Oklahoma and its potential MOP senior Buddy Hield. (Champion: No (Okla)Homers.) 

FACT NO. 3: Seven of the past nine champions haven been a No. 1 seed. (Champion: North Carolina.)

(Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)

FACT NO. 4: Of the past nine champions to finish the year inside the AP Top 10, eight have finished in the top five. (Champion: No. 3 North Carolina. Villanova finished No. 6 with Oklahoma at No. 7. Syracuse finished unranked with no votes despite a total of 46 teams getting at least one vote including Stony Brook, Akron, Saint Mary's, Valparaiso, Stephen F. Austin, Butler and Monmouth. In total, four teams who didn't make the tournament got votes while Syracuse, with their "deserved" at-large bid - no seriously, look at my Twitter mentions - got none.)

FACT NO. 5: The last team to win their first title was Florida in 2006. But that capped a run of three teams in five years to pull the feat (Maryland in 2002 and Syracuse in 2003 also did it).That run began one year after a Duke title. (Champion: Oklahoma)

FACT NO. 6: Five of the last seven high-scorers in the tournament (cough, Buddy Hield - no cough after, we're trying to make it a thing) were on title-winning teams and each made the final. (Finalist: Oklahoma)

(Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)

FACT NO. 7: No top seed has ever won the title in a year with a double-digit seed in the Final Four, like Syracuse this year. In those years though, the teams ranked Nos. 1, 2 and 3 among the Final Four teams all won, which means it's time for the lowest-ranked team to score a W. And we're going to see a double-digit champion one of these days. It'd be sad if it were a team that finished behind Virginia Tech and Clemson in conference play, but here we are. (Champion: Syracuse.)

(I feel we glossed over this fact. Syracuse finished below VIRGINIA TECH and CLEMSON in the ACC. Both teams missed the NCAA tournament. The Hokies had to go to overtime to beat PRINCETON in the first round of the NIT then lost to BYU in the second. Clemson, which has the dubious distinction of having the most NIT appearances ever, didn't even MAKE that tournament.

 

I know this is a lot of CAPITALIZATION but Syracuse's best wins were over Texas A&M and Duke (Nos. 3 and 4 seeds) while Tech defeated No. 1 seed Virginia and No. 3 seed Miami. Clemson beat Louisville (Top 10 in KenPom but on a postseason ban) and Miami. But Syracuse was a bubble team and VT/Clemson weren't even considered. Oh, and Clemson BEAT Syracuse. And one more thing: Syracuse finished a game ahead of Georgia Tech, who just fired its coach. Okay, sorry, I just felt this needed to be addressed even three weeks after Selection Sunday.)

FACT NO. 8: The only time Syracuse won the title they had to beat a No. 1 seed in the Final Four and a No. 2 seed in the final. The same path lies in front of them this year. (Champion: Syracuse - What, just because they didn't belong doesn't mean they can't keep the win streak going!)

(Photo by Tim Bradbury/Getty Images)

FACT NO. 9: Three of the previous four times Duke won a title, another ACC team won the next year. (Duke in '92, Carolina in '93 and Maryland in '02.) (Champion: North Carolina or Syracuse)

FACT NO. 11: This is the first time since 2006 that at least one team in the Final Four didn't make the Elite Eight the previous year. (That year, none of the F4 even made the Sweet 16 in 2005.) The Final Four ended up being won by a team that'd never had a title. (Champion: Oklahoma

FACT NO. 12: Individual Final Four logos began in 1980 and, for the first decade or so, they were creative, city-specific designs that had no unity from year to year. But with the possible exception of the last Final Four to hit Houston (2011), the NCAA's Final Four logos have become so plain and unimaginative in the past 25 years (the Super Bowl has had the same problem), with a basic format that occasionally will place a city landmark/reference - you know, an Arch for St. Louis, a peach for Atlanta, a cowboy hat for San Antonio completely generic designs for North Texas and Indianapolis. But back in the day? These things were awesome:

The best of the bunch? The 1985 logo, from a time when the Final Four had character and was held in arenas in which you could actually see the action instead of football stadiums masking as basketball courts. And who won that 1985 tournament? Your 2016 champion: Villanova.

Why? What correlation does a logo have with winning a tournament? None. Absolutely zero. But isn't that the point? The more reasons you think a team will win, the less chance they have of winning, as the fallen favorites have demonstrated over the past 15 days. 

(Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)

That's why, In three nights, you should expect a Villanova victory for two reasons and two reasons only: They'll beat Oklahoma on Friday and UNC on Monday. Then they'll cut down the nets, your newest NCAA tournament champion.