For as long as I can remember, I've loved the big March Madness upset. The first one I can vividly recall was Princeton dethroning defending national champion UCLA late on a Thursday night in 1996.
Even when a team or school I enjoy watching gets knocked out early at the hands of a smaller-conference school, I don't mind it. For example, when Arizona — who I thought was the most complete team in the country in 2023 — lost to (who else) Princeton in a 15-2 upset, it killed any brackets I was in, but I didn't care.
There's a high likelihood that we'll see a stunning upset like those of yesteryear next week in the NCAA tournament, and I'll enjoy rooting for the underdog to pull it off.
But there can also be too many upsets in an edition of March Madness, especially in the second weekend of the dance. We don't have to look any further than the same 2023 tournament, when no top-three seeds made the Final Four. After San Diego State took down Cinderella Florida Atlantic, I was pretty much checked out as a fan.
The title game felt more like a "somebody's got to win" contest rather than a culmination of a season. UConn storming through the next season by dominating the field with much of the same rotation boosted the 2023 title historically, but it felt slightly underwhelming in the moment.
On the other hand, when the final game provides a worthy culmination of a five-month season, it feels like an event. A battle of titans. A worthy way to decide a champion.
In the last 30 years, there's been several of these showdowns:
1999: UConn vs. Duke
2005: North Carolina vs. Illinois
2007: Florida vs. Ohio State
2008: Kansas vs. Memphis
2015: Duke vs. Wisconsin
2021: Baylor vs. Gonzaga
2024: UConn vs. Purdue
My criteria here was that both finalists had to be No. 1 seeds and spent time at No. 1 or 2 in the polls. A special honorable mention goes to the 1996 Kentucky vs. UMass clash, which was a semifinal, but featured the top two teams in the polls every week from Christmas 1995 to the end of the season.
With the possible exception of the COVID-impacted 2020-21 season, I remember all of these seasons fondly. And Baylor/Gonzaga perhaps makes up for the COVID impacts because it felt like a two-year championship after each team was highly likely to be a No. 1 seed had the 2020 tournament not been cancelled.
For 2025, that means I'm rooting for a decidedly non-upset outcome at the end of the Madness: Auburn vs. Duke on April 7 in San Antonio. Since Houston is now up to No. 2 in the AP poll after Auburn's 0-2 first week of March, the Cougars qualify for my criteria if they get picked as a No. 1 seed. But I don't want to sugarcoat it — Duke and Auburn have been the most impressive teams for months.
They've been so impressive, in fact, that they may be two of the best teams in the modern era relative to their competition. Per KenPom's efficiency rating, Duke's net rating is the best of any team since 1999. Auburn at No. 2 this season is just a few points behind and is the best rating for a No. 2 team in the 29-season history of the rating.
A lot of attention has been focused on Duke's Cooper Flagg and Auburn's Johni Broome, and for great reason. They've been the two best players in the country this season and they each have a varied skill set that wasn't seen by many big frontcourt players a generation ago. It would be shocking if the pair don't sweep all of the various national player of the year awards to be announced in the next few weeks.
When the two teams played in early December, Flagg and Broome largely cancelled each other out, but with Flagg crucially getting to the line 12 times.
More pivotally for Duke's season, that game saw the introduction of Tulane transfer Sion James to the starting lineup. Since then, the Blue Devils are 23-1.
If they face off again, the prevailing storyline will likely pit the fifth-year senior Broome's experience against the No. 1 draft pick Flagg's youth. But that could be a bit reductive. Freshman guard Tahaad Pettiford is a crucial offensive weapon for Auburn and Duke has four rotation players, including starters James and Tyrese Proctor, who are juniors or seniors.
However, it won't be a cakewalk for each team to get to that final Monday of the season. Auburn losing to Texas A&M and Alabama after clinching the regular season SEC title and Duke having to comeback in the second half at North Carolina showed that. It's also been a fairly top-heavy college basketball season, with Houston, Tennessee, Florida, Michigan State, and Alabama all looking dominant at times against top competition.
But there's one matchup that's more intriguing and titanic than any other — and it's the one I'll be rooting for during March Madness.
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