By Aidan Mastandrea
Staff Writer
It started with 68 teams. Only four remain.
Just like that, the Final Four is set for April 2 in New Orleans. There is no shortness of headlines moving into this weekend as Villanova and Kansas, along with Duke and North Carolina are ready to face off.
The Duke, North Carolina basketball rivalry has been around for over a century, with UNC holding an overall record of 141-115 over the Blue Devils. While the two programs have played over 250 times, none of those matchups have taken place in the NCAA tournament — until Saturday. This also has the potential to be Duke coach Mike Kryzewski’s last game at the helm, as the legendary coach will be retiring after this season.
On the other side of the bracket, Kansas will match up against Villanova. This is a rematch of the Final Four game from 2018, in which Villanova bested the Jayhawks on their way to a national championship victory. Kаnsas, led by head coach Bill Self will look to get revenge as the lone one seed left in the tournament. Villanova, however, will be without key contributor forward Justin Moore, as he tore his achilles late in the Elite Eight game against Houston.
There will be a plethora of future NBA talent on display this coming weekend in New Orleans.
Duke freshman forward Paolo Banchero and Kansas Forward Ochai Agbaji will both likely be top 10 picks in this year's NBA draft. Villanova is also carried by veteran point guard and co-Big East player of the year, Colin Gillespie. North Carolina has many different ways to win with players like Armando Bacot, RJ Davis and Brady Manek.
While it is a Final Four, only .1% of ESPN brackets, according to ESPN, will be predicted correctly, which will surely have viewers glued to their televisions.
Four prestigious college basketball programs will try to add to their already long list of accomplishments. Coach Kryzewski ending his career with a championship, eight seed UNC surprising the world and Jay Wright or Bill Self adding another championship to their resume are all great storylines — but only one will go down in the books this weekend in New Orleans.
