2023 Final Four preview: (4) UConn vs. (5) Miami

Bruiser Brigade vs. the Beach Boys

I’m getting a little tired of typing out the whole “well no one saw THIS coming” thing but on one hand no one saw this coming. On the other, this is a UConn team that spent every day from Thanksgiving onwards inside the KenPom top 7 and was a much better team than their record displayed. Also, for all their massive flaws, Miami was a 25-win team with a top-10 offense. They could at least play ball a little bit, even if I didn’t see a single bracket with them surpassing the Sweet Sixteen.

Either way, this is quite the unusual matchup. It’s the team with the second-best odds from the Midwest Region (fine) versus the team with the eighth-best odds from the South (!). That’s what makes this Final Four pretty fascinating no matter what; if you delete the seeds and sorted teams based on their pre-tourney KenPom rankings, this is a 1 seed versus a 10/11 seed in the Final Four. What Miami has overcome to get here is remarkable, and UConn’s status as the heavy favorite as a 4 seed is also remarkable. The intrigue is palpable!

BELOW THE LINE ($): all the goodies for both fanbases on the 97th-most likely Final Four matchup that could have happened