1st Big Upset - W. Kentucky Claims Final 4 Spot - History of other Final 4s

Our 7-seed Western Kentucky scored the first big upset of our 16-team tournament, dominating the boards in a 78-62 win over 2-seed Oregon State. 

We noted Oregon State's one weakness seemed to be low rebounding numbers, but it was not that big a risk in their 81-68 win against James Madison 2024, which is also a weaker rebounding team. However, WKU was a fantastic rebounding team despite the whole team being 6'5 or 6'6 except for the 6'3 superstar Clem Haskins. They dominated the glass with a 40-24 rebounding edge.

Senior center Steve Cunningham's aggressive play took advantage of the soon-to-be great freshman AC Green. With the Hilltoppers leading 60-55 and 5:49 (10 possessions to play) Cunningham drew the 5th foul on Green and hit the basket for an "and-one," sinking the free throw to make it 63-55.

We did not play Green with "soft defense to avoid the foul" because he had two solid backups on Greg Wiltier and Rob Holbrook with stamina left, but Cunningham finished with a double-double (16 points and 10 rebounds) to go with Clem Haskins 21, 8 for the win.

Western Kentucky, which had barely survived Buffalo 2019 in their first game 84-82, will now face Tulsa and Bill Self in one Final 5 game. They will try to spoil a potential match-up of two of the greatest coaches of the 21st century and rematch of the John Calipari (Memphis) vs. Self (Kansas) 2008 championship with two other teams in the game. This one could be Tulsa vs. UMass 1996. However, new Mexico State 1970 will try to eliminate UMass in the other Final 4 game.

In our March 2020 Final 4 from the original 96 all-time great teams in the game, Bill Walton's UCLA beat Mikal Bridges' Villanova 2018 and Michael Jordan's UNC beat Draymond Green's Michigan State. UCLA then won the title, and is now ranked No. 1 of our all-time teams.

In our June 2022 Final Four, Paul Pierce's 1997 Kansas beat 2001 Duke, then another surprise team and the last Big Ten team to win the actual title, Michigan State 2000 beat DePaul 1980 and Terry Cummings. That tournament featured many great teams who were left out of the first batch because we only allowed one team from each school per century. Kansas then won the title and is now ranked No. 2 of our all-time teams.

In our all-time women's Final Four in March 2023, Pat Summit's Tennessee 1998 defeated UConn 2010 in one Final Four game before beating Louisiana Tech 1982, which included Dennis Rodman's sister Debra, in the title game. La Tech had beaten Notre Dame 2018 in the other Final 4 game.

We do have a Sweet 16 of newer teams more recently added we will get back to after this Final 4, and we still need to finish calculating the cards for our 16 new Women's all-time great teams who will also play a Sweet 16 tourament.

 

Pos	Western Kentucky	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Season Actual	Hts
1-PG	Dwight Smith	17	1	5	4	4	3	2	0	3	16.1 Pts, 9.9 Reb	6'5
2-SG	Clem Haskins	21	4	3	3	4	8	3	0	4	20.4 Pts, 10.0 Reb-NBA	6'3
3-SF	Wayne Chapman	9	1	3	0	1	6	0	3	2	13.3 Pts, 4.3 Reb-NBA	6'6
4-PF	Greg Smith	7	1	2	0	0	6	0	3	2	9.5 Pts, 10.3 Reb-NBA	6'5
5-C	Steve Cunningham	16	0	6	4	7	10	0	1	1	15.1 Pts, 7.4 Reb	6'5
1-PG	Mike Fawcett	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	2.1 Pts, 0.6 Reb	5'10
2-SG	Butch Kaufman	2	0	1	0	0	3	0	0	3	4.0 Pts, 1.0 Reb	5'10
3-SF	Norm Weaver	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	2.9 Pts, 1.7 Reb	6'5
4-PF	Pearl Hicks	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	2.3 Pts, 3.0 Reb	6'7
5-C	Jack Butler	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	1	1.8 Pts, 1.8 Reb	6'5
	16 Turnovers	78	7	23	11	16	40	5	7	19
Pos	Oregon St. 1982	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Season Actual	Hts
1-PG	William Brew	7	1	0	4	6	2	2	1	3	6'1,9.2 ppg	6'2
2-SG	Lester Conner	19	2	3	7	10	5	2	1	4	6'4,14.9 ppg, NBA	6'2
3-SF	Danny Evans	14	1	5	1	3	3	1	0	3	6'5,11.3 ppg	6'6
4-PF	Charlie Sitton	10	2	2	0	0	3	0	0	1	6'8,12.9 ppg, NBA	6'7
5-C	A.C. Green	8	0	3	2	2	6	0	1	5	6'9,8.6 ppg, NBA	6'11
1-PG	Alan Tait	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'2,0.5 ppg	6'3
2-SG	Jamie Stangel	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'7,1.4 ppg	6'7
3-SF	Jeff Wilson	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'7,1.2 ppg	6'7
4-PF	Rob Holbrook	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'86.7 ppg	6'9
5-C	Greg Wiltjer	2	0	1	0	0	1	2	0	1	6'11,5.4 ppg	6'9
	13 turnovers	62	6	15	14	21	24	7	3	21