How hard is it to make the Final 4?

[sirthought]

BTW, You should make sure you are right, before you tell somebody that they are wrong....

There are only 34 years of final fours. 34 x 4 = 136. What did I get wrong?

[MHettel]

Ok, here is the Analysis.

In the 35 years with the 64 team format there have been 140 "Final 4 Teams".

There have been a total of 49 schools that have made the Final 4. With about 350 total D1 teams, that means just about 1 in 7 teams have made it (14%).

The 5 teams that have the MOST Final 4 appearances (Duke, UNC, KU, MSU & UK) account for 48 FINAL 4 APPEARANCES. That is 34% of the total!

The next 5 teams (Syracuse, UConn, Michigan, Florida, Arizona*) have combined for 24 additional appearances. That means the TOP 10 schools have combined for 51% of the total!!!

*side note: Arizona, was tied with UCLA, UofL, and Nova with 4 appearances, so I just counted one of those teams as #10. (Before you ask, I picked Arizona to be a reminder that they had all four of those appearances under Lute Olsen, and exactly ZERO since then).

Outside of the Top 10, there are 17 OTHER teams that have more than one appearance, and they average 2.7 appearances each.

So we've now accounted for 118 of the 140 total appearances, leaving 22 teams that have a single final 4 under their belt.

Recap: 27 (7.7% of D1) teams account for 118 Final 4 Appearances (84% of the total). Now remove those teams from the total number of D1 teams, and that means 22 of the remaining 323 D1 teams have a Final 4 Appearance (6.8%).

Conclusion: YES! it's REALLY hard to make a Final 4.

Other Random Stats:

ACC, B10, SEC, BE, B12 & Pac 12 have 120 of 140 Final 4 appearances.

ACC leads with 11 National Champs, BE next with 8, then SEC with 6. B10 (3), B12 (2), & Pac 12 (2) round out the multiple winners. Only 3 other conferences have won one.....

B10 has the most runner's up with 9. so they are 3-9 in the final game. ACC Dominates here again, going 11-6 in the final.

The Current BE has 8 schools with 17 total Final 4 appearances.


Shifting Gears to #1 seeds:

Only 42 teams have achieved a #1 seed. 27 of those teams have done it more than once.

The Top 5 teams have 58 #1 seeds Combined (41%).

Duke, UNC & Kansas ALL have been #1 seeds 14 times, or a whopping 40% of the total number of possible times EACH!

My conference data is a little weak for the #1 seeds, but my Calculation shows that of the current BE (including UCONN), there have been
5 teams that have earned a total of 15 #1 seeds.

Why did I do this? Because everybody freaks-the-fuck-out that we haven't made a Final 4, and I wanted to get a better understanding of what it takes. The Bottom line is that we are NOT a top 10 program, and if you are not in that small group, then the odds are seriously stacked against you. You gotta chip away, I guess....

[MHettel]

There are only 34 years of final fours. 34 x 4 = 136. What did I get wrong?

Just count. 1985 to 90 is SIX. Not 5. That's what fucked you up.

[Xuperman]

Without cheating with google, I'm trying to remember how many of our old A10 brethren made either list. I'm pretty certain that St Joe was a #1 seed but thinking that UMass/Temple/URI may have landed in one or the other.

Cool Thread!

[paulxu]

ACC leads with 11 National Champs, ....

Being old, this statistic (which is from 1985 till the present) reminds me that UCLA has 11 national championships all by itself.
Yes, there were less teams in the tourney, but that is a crazy stat for John Wooden (10 of them).
If it's hard to make the Final Four, just imagine how hard that was.

[Xavier]

I know it is still hard- but I always thought it was widely known that most of UCLA players were getting paid quite a bit by a booster. It never really gets mentioned when people talk about Wooden and UCLA so maybe it is being a bit fabricated.

[paulxu]

My guess is that a lot of college athletes over the years get "paid" in one way or another.
Loaned cars from dealerships, jobs that aren't really jobs, etc.
Probably went on a lot more back in Wooden's time than now...and it all may change with athletes getting to benefit from endorsements openly now.

But his paid guys still had to go up against the other paid guys, and win 10.

[bleedXblue]

My guess is that a lot of college athletes over the years get "paid" in one way or another.
Loaned cars from dealerships, jobs that aren't really jobs, etc.
Probably went on a lot more back in Wooden's time than now...and it all may change with athletes getting to benefit from endorsements openly now.

But his paid guys still had to go up against the other paid guys, and win 10.

Yeah, I don't know what to think on this one. 10 is 10. That's a ridiculous amount. You have to believe that part of it was playing for Wooden.......and the other part likely was their "package" was more lucrative.

[atljar]

St Joe was a 1 seed the year we beat them in the A10 tourney, but ended the year in the Elite 8. UMass had a final four with Marcus Camby and Calipari, but that technically was erased from history.

[Xavier]

Frankly, there have only been 3 times going into the tournament that I thought Xavier had a real, legitimate chance to get to the final four. (I am talking hopes somewhat high). Two of them were with Mack- and I think they were somewhat exploited in the early outs. The other was Millers elite 8 team. That team had the length, the defense, the versatility on offense and a toughness that Macks two teams didn't have.