(EDITOR'S NOTE: IlliniGuys co-founder Larry Smith has covered sports from the local to the international level for 35 years, including 12 Final Fours and six NBA Finals.  He is the creator of the Dirty Dozen, an office pool selection matrix that is 12-0 in its existence.)

By Larry Smith - IlliniGuys Staff Writer

March 20, 2023

(Cover photo courtesy The Daily Progress)

--Another mid-March weekend glued to the tube and I'm so thankful that - as a lifelong sports fan - a true playoff is finally coming to college football.  I've dreamed of this kind of excitement in December for so long.  Will this mean that an upstart will crack the hierarchy of Alabama/Georgia/LSU/Clemson/Ohio State and win a national championship?  Not anytime soon.  I mean, we're still waiting for a non-power conference team to take an NCAA basketball title, right?  But to have a Troy or Coastal Carolina-type pull off an early round upset would skyrocket the already-stratospheric interest in college football.

I mean, I know college basketball lifers who didn't know who FDU was before Friday night, but found themselves changing the channel and rooting for this tiny (in stature and in school size) program from New Jersey.  And following a true David vs. Goliath triumph over Purdue, their run ended at the hands of another Cinderella in Florida Atlantic.  Neither school had ever won an NCAA tournament game before (Fairleigh Dickinson's Northeast Conference had never posted a victory) and yet it was the Owls that wrestled the title of tournament darling away from the Knights in a prime-time matchup (yes, you read that right!) to advance to their first Sweet 16.

--Why was FDU vs. FAU a marquee event?  Because this is the new world of college basketball.  Out are legendary coaches named Krzyzewski, Boehiem, Williams, and Wright.  In is the era of NIL and the transfer portal.  Look at your bracket and notice who is missing.  No Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, nor North Carolina for the second time in three years and just the second time overall since 1979.  There are only four programs still dancing that have NCAA championship banners hanging at home and, if you take away title leader UCLA, the other three have won just five national crowns combined.  It's a new era and a chance for the game's new powers to flex their muscles.

--So, was the Big Ten ultra-competitive this year...or just exceptionally average?  Eight teams earned bids and seven were back on campus in time for class this morning.  Purdue won the league by the widest margin (three games) since 2014, but was ousted in epic fashion by an FDU team that didn't even qualify for the automatic bid it received. (NEC tourney champ Merrimack is still ineligible as a Division I newcomer, so tourney runner-up FDU was sent instead)  The smallest team in Division I (FDU's average height is only 6'3") took down the mighty Boilermakers and 7'4" consensus All-American Zach Edey, the Big Ten Player of the Year who was a virtual non-factor down the stretch Friday night.

Purdue became the third straight Big 10 tournament champ to fail to reach the round of 16 after Illinois in 2021 (#1 seed was upset in 2nd round) and Iowa in 2022 (#5 seed was upset in the 1sr round).  Both of those teams played in 8-9 games this year and both were sent home with first round losses.  10-seed Penn State continued its hot run with an upset over 7-seed and SEC  runner-up Texas A&M before 2-seed Texas sent the Lions home.  Maryland was no match for #1 seed and championship favorite Alabama in round two.

It's a fair argument (and one that IlliniGuys Insider Brad Sturdy made late Sunday night) that only two Big Ten teams were seeded to reach the regional semifinal round.  But of the final 16, six of those weren't supposed to be there either.

--The Spartans are one of those.  You can hate on Michigan State's Tom Izzo all you want, but the history books will love him.  Sunday's gritty 69-60 shocker of 2-seed and championship darkhorse Marquette gave Izzo's Spartans their 15th regional semifinal appearance in 25 years, the second-most in that span.  And the upset was the veteran coach's 16th tournament win over a higher seed, surpassing the recently-retired Jim Boeheim of Syracuse for the record.   It never matters what Michigan State does during the season; no team is a bigger scare year-in and year-out in March than the Spartans and their crafty coach.

--Here's hoping that the Illinois loss to Arkansas brings about a needed attitude check in the locker room.  Sturdy spoke with every player after Thursday's loss in Des Moines and it appeared the players finally understood their role in making this one of the most bizarre seasons in program history.  It was disappointing to see the Illini down by double-digits before halftime and, at one point, losing to a team that was shooting just 25 percent from the field.  But it was the season in a microcosm.  The "Every Day Guys" and their passion are gone.  What was left behind was a group of "Every Other Day Guys" and they may have now received the wake-up call about the importance of consistency.  This team was better than what their record says.  Now, will they step up and work to make a difference next season?

Listening to ESPN in the past week and you'd have thought Jon Scheyer was the second coming. But the first-year Duke coach was going home in the second round, after falling to Tennessee. (Photo courtesy Vols Wire)

--Let me throw out a hypothetical: I'm a basketball guy on TV and I'm predicting that a team with players who have mostly never played in the NCAA tournament coached by a man who has never coached in the NCAA  tournament is going to reach the Final Four.  Am I completely nuts by myself OR do you join me on Insane Island and say 'yeah, that works for me!'?

Well, that's what those of you who picked Duke to go to the Final Four or beyond did and I could only shake my head as the seconds ticked down Saturday and the laments on social media grew. Duke had a fantastic season and Jon Scheyer exceeded expectations in his first season calling the shots in Durham.  But I was stunned when (it felt like) every ESPN analyst Sunday night on the post-Selection show picked Duke in the Final Four.  I've never seen a 5-seed be a near unanimous pick to win an NCAA regional title.

Do you realize how many 5-seeds have reached the Final Four since the NCAA began seeding teams in 1979?  Eight!  Do you know how many of those eight went on to win the national championship?  ZERO!

I'm going to say something here that's going to sound harsh, but it's just reality - and understand that so many of these guys are personal friends and people I respect:  TV pundits know little more than you do this time of year.  And for the ESPN studio peeps, that means ACC, Big East, Kentucky, and Kansas. And I'm not kidding!  I hosted these types of shows for many years during my CNN & CNNSI days.  The freelance analysts that we would bring in could tell you the Xs and Os of the couple of games they watched that day, but we would have to feed them info about many of the others.  There's nothing wrong with that; it was our JOB to know and not theirs.  And when it came time to make their picks, they did so on emotion or what felt comfortable.  They had less insight into that 3rd seed in the West Region than I did.

Here's a little hint:  TV analysts LOVE the winners of the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, and SEC tournaments.  You almost set your watch by it; each one - as they are cutting down the nets in their respective arenas - will be labeled a national title contender by one or more of those on the mic, no matter how they got there or what their resume says.  A few years ago, a Michigan State team that wasn't as good as some of their predecessors won the Big Ten tourney and CBS filled the time until the top of the hour by showing the Spartans celebrating, etc. They began proclaiming Michigan State as a team that could win the national championship, a sentiment never uttered before the entire afternoon until then.  The Spartans weren't exceptional, but they played hard and deserved the conference title they got.  In the next hour, they drew a 2-seed in the NCAA tournament and that Friday they were knocked out by 15-seed Middle Tennessee State.

Emotions get the best of us.  A good guideline to remember is this: aside from a few exceptions (Villanova '85, Arizona '97, UConn '14), your national champion always comes from the top 3 seed lines.  So if you picked Duke or Indiana or Tennessee or Kentucky, your path to victory was a very narrow one.

--So, if you take that tidbit and apply the Dirty Dozen to it, then your national champion will be either Alabama or Gonzaga.  (More on the Dirty Dozen here: https://illiniguys.com/the-13th-annual-dirty-dozen-the-ncaa-tournament-predictor-that-has-never-missed/   It's an interesting year for the Dozen, as it may be the first time that it is "top-heavy", or there are more Dirty teams along the top three seed lines than on the bottom three seed lines.  Seven of the 12 made it to the Sweet 16, but the Dozen is still very much alive.  In 2019, three of the Final Four were Dirty, but it was the "clean" Virginia Cavaliers that won it all.

There has been only one team (2005 North Carolina) that reached the NCAA title game without ever playing a top 4 seed.  Alabama could join them, as the Tide face 5-seed San Diego State next and then either 6-seed Creighton or 15th seed Princeton in the regional final.  7th seed Michigan State or 9-seed Florida Atlantic could await them in the Final Four.

The Dozen has to fail at some point and its 13th year and in a crazy season such as this has been would be a good a time as ever.  But reports of its demise are premature.  Let's see what the weekend holds.

--Finally, for those who assume Fairleigh Dickinson was some Revolutionary War hero or political stateman from the early 1800's, think again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairleigh_S._Dickinson