2025 NCAA tourney showed coaches the secret sauce needed to win in March Madness
Fast-break points from the transfer portal vortex:
21. Experience wins in March Madness. Of the 20 players who started in the 2025 men’s NCAA Tournament Final Four, 14 of them were either a super-senior (six), a senior (five) or a junior (three).
20. A continuation of a trend. Over the past five NCAA tourneys, 74 of the 100 total Final Four starters were in at least their third years of college.
19. A dearth of freshmen. In the past five NCAA Tournaments combined, only seven freshmen have started a Final Four game — five of whom played for Duke (two in 2022 and three in 2025).
18. Experience is not enough. Old may be gold in men’s college hoops roster construction, but the just concluded NCAA Tournament showed that experience by itself is not enough to attain March Madness success — you also need roster continuity.
17. Multi-year players in your program. Of the 20 starters in the 2025 Final Four, 12 had been in their current program for more than one season.
16. Duke is an outlier. Take out the Blue Devils with their three freshmen starters plus a super-senior transfer in his first season playing for Jon Scheyer, and 11 of the 15 starters on the other three Final Four teams — Florida, Auburn and Houston — had been in those programs for multiple seasons.
15. Kentucky’s challenge. That’s why, for all the good work Mark Pope has done so far in the transfer portal, a big key for UK’s 2025-26 NCAA Tournament aspirations is to retain Otega Oweh, Brandon Garrison, Collin Chandler, Travis Perry and Trent Noah off of last season’s roster.
14. A remarkable streak continues. Starting in 2004, every eventual NCAA champion has been ranked in the top 12 of the AP Top 25 poll in week six. This season’s national champ, Florida, was No. 9 in the week six AP Top 25.
13. The Pomeroy Ratings. It has become accepted wisdom that the teams most likely to win the national championship can be found on Selection Sunday among those ranked in the top 20 in both adjusted offensive efficiency and adjusted defensive efficiency at kenpom.com.
12. The Pomeroy Ratings hit again. On the night the NCAA tourney bracket was announced, Florida was No. 1 in adjusted offensive efficiency and No. 10 in defensive efficiency.
11. Gonzaga’s streak snapped. Coach Mark Few’s Bulldogs had their stretch of nine straight trips to the NCAA tourney round of 16 ended by an 81-76 loss to Houston in the round of 32.
10. Zags still on top in another NCAA tourney category. Over the past 10 years (2016 through 2025), Gonzaga has more men’s NCAA Tournament wins (25) than any other program.
9. Top 10 over the last 10. The nine teams immediately behind Gonzaga for the most men’s NCAA tourney victories since 2016 are North Carolina (22), Duke (21), Kansas (20), Villanova (20), Houston (19), Michigan (16), Purdue (16), Connecticut (14) and Texas Tech (14).
8. Among SEC teams. There is a four-way tie among Southeastern Conference programs for most NCAA tourney wins over the past 10 years. Alabama, Florida, Kentucky and Tennessee all have 12 March Madness victories since 2016. Auburn has 11.
7. SEC coaches. With Florida’s Todd Golden joining the list, there are now seven SEC men’s basketball head men with Final Four trips on their resume. In addition to Golden, Alabama’s Nate Oats, John Calipari of Arkansas, Auburn’s Bruce Pearl, Mississippi’s Chris Beard, Oklahoma’s Porter Moser and Tennessee’s Rick Barnes all have coached in the Final Four at least once in their careers.
6. Florida’s championship. Florida’s 65-63 win over Houston in Monday night’s NCAA title game was the kind of grind-it-out, defensive struggle that is the Cougars’ specialty. That Florida was good enough to essentially beat Houston at its own game only makes the Gators’ victory more impressive.
5. A Cynthiana “double.” When Florida beat Maryland 87-71 in the NCAA Tournament round of 16, it should have been a special moment for basketball fans in Cynthiana. Two of the officials who worked the game, Bart Lenox and Brent Hampton, are from Harrison County.
4. A proud father. Doug Hampton, Brent’s father and himself a prominent former basketball official, wrote in an email, “There were 24 referees still working NCAA games and two of them were from ‘Cyn City.’”
3. UK softball again takes up a special cause. Former Kentucky Wildcats center fielder and organ donor Beth (Fogle) Burbridge notes that the UK softball program will be advocating for Donate Life Month throughout April.
2. Promoting organ donation at games. At home games this month at John Cropp Stadium, UK will feature special scoreboard graphics highlighting the importance of organ donation. Also, children who have been organ recipients will throw out the first pitch for select games.
1. You can make a difference. Burbridge, who donated a kidney in 2019 to the son of a neighbor, says she is “honored that the University of Kentucky softball team continues to ... raise awareness and save lives during the month of April.”
This story was originally published April 10, 2025 at 7:00 AM.
