For only the second time in college basketball history (2008), all four No. 1 seeds reached the Final Four. Florida, Duke, Houston and Auburn are the only programs left standing after a chalk-filled NCAA Tournament. The Gators needed a late rally from 10 down to eliminate the three-seed Texas Tech while Duke continued its hot shooting to take down two-seed Alabama. Houston's defense held two-seed Tennessee to 15 first-half points, and Auburn stayed in control against the two-seed Michigan State.
All four head coaches in this year's Final Four (Todd Golden, Jon Scheyer, Kelvin Sampson, Bruce Pearl) have never won a national title, but one will walk away with the hardware after Monday night's championship game. While Sampson is entering his third Final Four and Pearl will be coaching in his second, this marks Golden and Scheyer's first Final Four as a head coach. While Scheyer has previous coaching experience under Hall of Famer Mike Krzyzewski as an assistant, Golden had previously served as the head coach at San Francisco before taking the same role at Florida.
This season, Sampson led Houston (34-4) on a dominant Big 12 run, winning the regular-season and conference tournament title en route to earning one of the four No. 1 seeds in the NCAA Tournament. Unlike most teams around the country, Houston's starting five is not entirely made up of transfers, but it does have a lot of experience heading into its seventh Final Four.
How many of Houston's starters are transfers?
For 25 of its 38 games, Houston has used the starting lineup of senior L.J. Cryer, senior J'Wan Roberts, junior Emanuel Sharp, sophomore Joseph Tugler and junior Milos Uzan. Three of the starters (Roberts, Sharp, Tugler) have remained at Houston while two of the team's leading scorers, Cryer and Uzan, transferred from other universities.
Cryer (15.4 PPG) is Houston's leading scorer and spent his first three seasons at Baylor before making the move to the Cougars. Cryer was on Baylor's 2021 championship team and improved his point total each season to a career-high 15 PPG in 2022-23. During his last two season at Houston, Cryer has been equally as impressive, averaging more than 15 PPG both seasons. For a team that has excelled defensively (58.3 PPG, best in the country), Cryer has been the driving force behind its offense and is more than capable of going for 30 or more points, having already accomplished so multiple times.
Uzan, the team's third-leading scorer (11.6 PPG), started his collegiate career at Oklahoma, where he spent his first two seasons. He shot 40.8% from three during his freshman season, but did not score more than nine PPG during his two seasons at Oklahoma. In his first season at Houston, Uzan has averaged a career-high 11.6 PPG and improved his three-point shooting to 44.5%. His efficiency from the floor and unselfishness (4.4 APG) has been a big part of Houston's success.
Roberts was on Houston's last Final Four team (2021) and Cryer won the national title with Baylor in 2021, but neither had a significant role on those teams, with only one combined start between them. With no player taller than 6-foot-8 (Roberts, Tugler) in its starting lineup, Houston will need to take advantage of its lockdown defense and close proximity to home in San Antonio if it is going to win its first national championship in program history despite reaching the title game twice in 1983 and 1984. Star freshman Cooper Flagg and Duke await on Saturday night (8:49 p.m. ET, CBS).