Show Me My Opponent, 2024 NCAA Tournament: (3) Creighton
stop saying I need to stay calm YOU need to stay calm
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Well, here we go. Tennessee embarks on its biggest villain, the Sweet Sixteen, where it draws the Creighton Bluejays. This website and many others have spent the last decade-plus discussing how much fun Creighton was to watch offensively, and it may go back to the Dana Altman days of the 2000s for some. Objectively speaking, Tennessee and Creighton are two of the 20 most important programs to the sport of college basketball in the last 15 years.
Which is why it is simply perfect they’re meeting here, for the literal first time since 1937. (That game ended 34-28 in Tennessee’s favor; 34-28 may be the halftime score on a bad day.) Creighton has now seen 25 NCAA Tournaments in school history, 18 of which have come since the field’s expansion to 64 teams in 1985. Their longest run: the Elite Eight, last year. Just like Tennessee in 2010, they came up short by a single point thanks to the 5-seeded opponent hitting a free throw late in the game. Just like Tennessee, they did it as a 6-seed. Just like Tennessee, it was the first game of Elite Eight Sunday versus a team with State in their name.
I suppose the only things that change in life are 0.6 seconds and the CBS graphics package.
Once-in-a-blue-moon symmetries aside, this is a terrific battle between #8 and #11 in KenPom. They’re two of the oldest rosters in America, both have senior stars, and both have been good-to-fantastic on both ends of the court. These are two coaches with 1,407 combined wins but one combined Final Four and four combined Elite Eights across 65 combined seasons of head coaching. In terms of narratives, on-court and off-court, this is as good as it can possibly get…until one of them is playing for their first-ever Final Four bid on Saturday in their second-ever Elite Eight. Breathe.
BEHIND THE WALL ($): Hyperventilating, pondering the end times, things of that nature