How the Final Four teams arrived here

To truly understand where this Virginia team started, you need to go back to last year's NCAA Tournament. The Cavaliers became the first No. 1 seed to lose to a No. 16 in men's tournament history. It was an embarrassing moment for Virginia and defined the program's inability to have postseason success. The Cavaliers didn't run away from it — they owned it. They used it as fuel to launch into the 2018-2019 season.  

Nearly a week after beating a tough Wisconsin team, the Cavs headed to Maryland to face their old ACC rivals in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge. Virginia committed just two turnovers in the entire game to squeak out a 76-71 victory in its first true road game of the season and biggest non-conference contest. 

Virginia lost only two regular-season games...both to Duke. On Jan. 19, Virginia lost at Duke, 72-70. Nearly three weeks later, it lost the rematch at home, 81-71. The bad is that the Cavaliers lost both games...but the positive is that they hung in there both times and could score with one of the better defensive teams in the nation. Still, they struggled to deal with R.J. Barrett (who averaged 28 ppg in the two games) and Zion Williamson.

With a little over 16 minutes left in Virginia's game at Syracuse, the Cavaliers trailed, 40-37. They would go on a 42-13 run to end the game behind one of the most remarkable three-point shooting displays anyone has ever seen. Virginia went 18-of-25 from behind the arc to down the Orange. Kyle Guy was amazing, hitting eight of his 10 shots from downtown. 

Going into the ACC Tournament, Virginia had won every game it played in against teams not named Duke. Its offense was looking so efficient to go with that packline defense. And then the Cavaliers go out and get spanked by Florida State in the ACC Tournament semifinals. All those doubts fans had about if this team was different came back around. The Cavs were a cool 5-of-24 from three, and the game looked eerily like the UMBC loss a year earlier. Even though the Cavaliers would gain a No. 1 seed, could they be counted on to make a deep run? 

Before last year, we all took for granted a No. 1 seed ousting a No. 16 seed. Yet Virginia's quest to a Final Four meant getting that first win, and it was tougher than most expected. The Wahoos trailed Gardner-Webb by 14 points in the first half and had all of us saying, "here we go again." A late Cavaliers run got them to within six at halftime, and then they got their act together in the second frame. A gorilla was off their back as they finally advanced, and it seemed to loosen them up for their next three rounds of games. 

Down three with five seconds remaining, Ty Jerome stepped to the line and hit the first free throw. He would miss the second, Mamadi Diakite tipped out the rebound to the backcourt and Kihei Clark would throw a long pass back to Diakite who lofted up a floater that found the bottom of the basket to send the game into overtime. Virginia would outlast Purdue but not before some of the best back-and-forth plays the tournament has seen. Virginia, despite watching Carsen Edwards' outstanding 42-point effort, reached its first Final Four since 1984.

Texas Tech entered its matchup with Duke with a 10-0 mark. Those 10 wins were all blowouts and many against teams that weren't going anywhere. This game, in New York, validated the Red Raiders even though they would lose, 69-58. Tech had a lead with about seven minutes remaining but melted down the stretch with bad turnovers and Duke making timely plays. The loss gave this team confidence that it can play with anyone if it cleans up its game. 

Tech hit a rough patch early in Big 12 play with a three-game losing streak. The Red Raiders lost at home to Iowa State and on the road to Baylor and Kansas State, all three NCAA Tournament teams, to put their conference record at 4-3. Were all those questions about Tech's non-conference schedule warranted? Is this another year where the Red Raiders' reliance on Jarrett Culver limits their offense in a tough tournament game? The doubters were circling the team. 

There seemed to be a changing of the guard on that late February night in Lubbock. Texas Tech drubbed the Jayhawks, 91-62, in the biggest game to come to United Supermarkets Arena. Tech shot 60 percent from the floor and 61.7 percent from three while holding Kansas to just 62 points. The win was in the middle of a nine-game winning streak to end the regular season and acted as a handoff of conference supremacy between the two programs. 

Texas Tech beat Iowa State on the last day of the regular season, clinching the program's first Big 12 regular-season championship. Jarrett Culver scored a career-high 31 points and looked like a future NBA star and a guy who can carry the team on his back for a Final Four run. He led the Raiders in scoring for 24 games. The championship (shared with Kansas State) ended Kansas' 14-year run of conference dominance.

As everyone was feeling great about Texas Tech making another big NCAA Tournament run, the team forgot to deal with the task at hand in the Big 12 Tournament. In the quarterfinals, the Red Raiders lost a stunner to West Virginia, 79-74. The Mountaineers were 4-14 in conference play and had no business winning that game. 

The Red Raiders' destruction of Michigan put everyone on notice: This is a title contender. After flicking away Northern Kentucky and Buffalo in its first two tournament games, Texas Tech smacked one of the other title contenders in Michigan. The game was never in doubt and showcased Tech's underappreciated offense paired with that suffocating defense. Texas Tech held Michigan to one of its worst scoring outputs ever. 

Texas Tech did a masterful job holding on to Gonzaga's outstanding offense. The game was back and forth all afternoon, but you could sense Tech's defense was only getting stronger. The game wasn't the most fluid to watch, but the intensity was certainly on display. The Red Raiders made huge plays on both ends of the court, including a huge block and controversial recovery by Tariq Owens. Texas Tech wins, 75-69, and advances to its first Final Four. 

Remember that coming into Auburn's game against Duke in the Maui Invitational, most people thought the Blue Devils could go undefeated. (They would lose the next day to Gonzaga.) So when Auburn lost, 78-72, to Duke, some saw it as promise of what the Tigers could be this season. Duke was held to 44 percent shooting, and Zion Williamson was held to 13 points. 

After winning two of their first three SEC games, the Tigers went on a bit of a skid. They would begin the drought by losing by two at home to Kentucky. From there, they went on the road to lose at South Carolina (by three) and Mississippi State (by eight). This would be the beginning of a stretch where Auburn would lose five of eight games and sit with a 5-6 conference record. While Auburn had been really good offensively, its defense certainly wasn't up to par. It also seems as if the Tigers weren't ready to compete with the best teams of the league. 

Who knew? Who knew when Auburn went into Rupp Arena and got destroyed by Kentucky, 80-53, that this would be a Final Four team? Who could have seen a team that shot 32 percent from the field and got outrebounded 43-24 could make a deep tournament run, or that a team that had gone 5-6 over its last 11 games could be SEC Tournament champions? Well, this game on Feb. 23 would be the last time Auburn would lose.

Auburn had been feasting on the SEC's bottom feeders toward the end of the season, so its season finale against Tennessee was a good barometer of where the team was going into the postseason. In a back-and-forth affair, Jared Harper hit big threes and big free throws to close out the game and give Auburn its biggest win in decades. 

Let's be real: No one saw this run coming. The Tigers had to win four games in four days to win the SEC Tournament championship. After eliminating the Missouri Tigers and South Carolina Gamecocks in the first two games, Auburn barely got by Florida with some controversial moments late. The Tigers would play Tennessee for the title a week after they upset the Vols. The game wasn't close, as Auburn breezed past Tennessee, 84-64, to win the Tigers their first SEC title since 1985.  

Blowing through the SEC Tournament is one thing, but beating New Mexico State in the NCAAs is another, right? After holding an 11-point lead with under seven minutes remaining, the Aggies went on a 16-6 run to get the game close. Down two, the Aggies passed up a wide-open layup to kick out for a game-winning three. The shot missed but the shooter, Terrell Brown, was fouled. Brown missed two of the three free throws, and New Mexico State missed an open three and and failed to get the upset. Auburn barely survived. 

Auburn may have been on fire heading into the tournament, bu its close win over New Mexico State caused some to pause about the upcoming road. To get to the Final Four, the Tigers had to go through three of college hoops' bluest bloods in Kansas, North Carolina and Kentucky. Auburn met the challenge and blew out both Kansas and North Carolina before outlasting Kentucky in overtime to reach its first ever Final Four. 

Michigan State was kind of an afterthought during the Champions Classic that opened the season. While Duke, Kentucky and Kansas were three of the top-ranked teams in the nation, poor old Sparty was just that other team in the event. Top-ranked Kansas would beat Michigan State, 92-87, as the Spartans' rally fell short.

In a year where some big injuries have derailed seasons, many thought Joshua Langford's season-ending foot injury would do the same to Michigan State. Langford hurt his foot during the Spartans victory over Northern Illinois on Dec. 29. While the team hoped he would return, it was announced a month later that he would miss the rest of the season. Freshman Aaron Henry and senior Matt McQuaid would be relied on to pick up the slack for the rest of the year. 

After beginning Big Ten play with a 9-0 mark, the Spartans curiously went on a three-game losing skid. Sure, losing to Purdue in West Lafayette isn't egregious, but following it up with a home loss to Indiana and at Illinois was a bit troubling. Indiana entered its game with Michigan State on a seven-game losing streak, while Illinois had lost eight of 11. Cassius Winston showed up, but not much else was happening. It was a bit of a crossroads of the season. 

Winning in Madison, Wisconsin is a tough feat, and the Spartans, who needed a bit of confidence injected back into the team, needed this win. It was a back-and-forth battle, as the Badgers' Ethan Happ scored 20 points and grabbed 12 boards. But Cassius Winston met the challenge with 23 points of his own. Tom Izzo called it a gritty win and one that carried the Spartans the rest of the season. (They'd win 14 of their next 15 games.) 

It wasn't just that Michigan State won the Big Ten tournament championship, but it was the team the Spartans beat to do it. They faced Michigan for the third time in three weeks and beat them all three times. The game had a lot riding on it, as a possible No. 1 seed was on the line (turns out it wasn't), and winning the championship of the league that placed the most teams in the NCAA Tournament field was also at play. Matt McQuaid scored a career-high 27 points in the 65-60 victory. 

One of the talking points during the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament was footage of Tom Izzo berating freshman Aaron Henry during a timeout. The Spartans would pull away late to beat Bradley, but all the talk was about Izzo's screaming at his freshman. Even the head coach himself had to weigh in on it during the postgame media interview. While it seems like a blip during a long season, it did appear to galvanize the players and their coach. 

Going into the tournament, some analysts were upset that Michigan State was placed in Duke's bracket. Many felt that Michigan State deserved to be in a region with an easier No. 1 seed and that Duke didn't deserve to have a strong No. 2 seed in its region. Turns out to be prophetic, as the Spartans beat the overwhelming title favorite, 68-67, behind a huge Kenny Goins three with 39 seconds remaining.