A historically chalky NCAA tournament will fittingly crown a national champion with a clash of the heavyweights.
All four No. 1 seeds have advanced to the men’s Final Four for the first time since 2008 and only the second time in history.
Saturday’s first national semifinal will pit the two juggernauts left standing from this season’s most dominant conference. SEC regular-season champ Auburn (32-5) will face off against SEC tournament champion Florida (34-4) with a spot in the national title game at stake.
The nightcap of the Final Four doubleheader could offer Duke (35-3) its toughest challenge of the postseason. The Blue Devils draw a Houston team that has lost just once since Thanksgiving weekend thanks to its holy trinity of defense, rebounding and protecting the ball.
Oddly enough, the Alamodome was also the venue the only other time all four No. 1 seeds made the Final Four. In 2008, Kansas toppled Memphis in overtime to win Bill Self’s first national title, tying the game in the final seconds of regulation with a Mario Chalmers 3-pointer after Derrick Rose missed a potential clinching free throw.
Between 2008 and 2025, there weren’t many other years when the four No. 1 seeds came close to advancing en masse to the Final Four. Only in 2015 did three teams from the top seed line make the Final Four. Not since 2016 have all four No. 1 seeds even made the Elite Eight.
"The four teams that are advancing, I think they're the best four teams in the country," Auburn coach Bruce Pearl said after his team's win Sunday. "That doesn't obviously always happen."
In hindsight, there were signs before the NCAA tournament tipped off that this could be the year that bucked that trend. By the numbers, the 2025 NCAA tournament had maybe the strongest quartet of No. 1 seeds in recent history.
Duke, Florida, Auburn and Houston each entered the NCAA tournament with adjusted efficiency margins of 35 or more, according to college basketball statistician Ken Pomeroy. That's the number of points they would be expected to outscore the average Division I opponent by over 100 possessions.
The gap between the four No. 1 seeds and even this year’s No. 2s and 3s was unusually large. So was the gap between this year’s four No. 1 seeds and previous national champions. Only two of the past 22 national champions have finished the NCAA tournament with an adjusted efficiency margin above 35.
Anecdotal evidence corroborates what the numbers are suggesting. Auburn and Florida are the two strongest teams from a dominant conference. Houston won the Big 12 by ...
