Duke's Final Four fade against Houston puts the Blue Devils among top teams to fall short of title

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — Duke had spent much of the season looking like like it was headed to a coronation behind Associated Press national player of the year Cooper Flagg and a roster boasting elite efficiency at both ends.

Instead, the Blue Devils improbably squandered a big lead against Houston and saw their season end in the Final Four. And that puts this 35-win Duke team on a select list of elite teams that fell short of winning the NCAA title in the 40 tournaments since expansion to 64 teams in 1985.

Entering the weekend, the Final Four's all-chalk set of 1-seeds boasted historically elite KenPom numbers when it comes to net efficiency, which is based on how much a team's offensive data outscores that of its defense while factoring in the quality of opponent. All were plus-35 or better, a threshold only six teams had finished with in KenPom's history previously going back to 1997.

Duke was the best at plus-39.62 for the No. 2 rate ever recorded by KenPom. Only now, Duke is joining Auburn on the sideline as Florida faces Houston — in its first title game since the Phi Slama Jama teams of the 1980s — on Monday night.

“It's been a special ride,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said, “that ended in a heartbreaking way.”

John Thompson's reigning champion Hoyas (35-3) made it back to the title game behind AP national player of the year Patrick Ewing, only to become the final victim in eighth-seeded Villanova's improbable title run.

Rollie Massimino's Wildcats made 22 of 28 shots (78.6%) in the win at Rupp Arena and remain the lowest-seeded team to cut down the nets.

It seemed Jerry Tarkanian's Rebels (34-1) were headed for the history as the first repeat champion since UCLA's run of seven straight from 1967-73, along with becoming the first unbeaten champ since Indiana in 1976.

That team was a wire-to-wire No. 1 in the AP Top 25 behind eventual No. 1 overall NBA draft pick Larry Johnson and averaged 97.7 points and outscored opponents by an average of 26.7 points.

Yet a season of romping wins ended when Mike Krzyzewski's Duke team — which lost by 30 to UNLV in the previous year's final — stunned the Rebels i n the Final Four in Indianapolis before winning its first title.

The famed “Fab Five” burst on the scene as a cultural phenomenon as an all-freshman unit that unexpectedly reached the title game in 1992. A year later, the Wolverines (31-5) made it back and played a compelling finale against North Carolina.

But that one featured a tournament-lore blunder of eventual No. 1 overall NBA draft pick Chris Webber receiving a late technical foul for calling a timeout the Wolverines didn't have to essentially seal the loss.

This might have been the best team of Roy Williams' Hall of Fame career, one led by eventual NBA star Paul Pierce and Raef LaFrentz. But the Jayhawks (34-2) fell in the Sweet 16 to eventual champion Arizona despite ranking in the top five in efficiency at both ends for KenPom.

That team spent 15 weeks at No. 1 and three weeks at No. 2 in the AP Top 25.

The Tar Heels (34-4) played their first year under Bill Guthridge ...