When It Comes To The Final Four, Power Is Truth

Chances are good that, as the only No. 1 seed remaining in the field, Virginia will come away with the title in this year’s Final Four.

The fact the Cavaliers will continue to beat the revenge drum may be tiresome, but it has some merit too in spurring them on.

Top seeds won 22 of 40 men’s national championships since seeding began in 1979, pending this year’s result. The predictive value of garnering a No.1 seed may be improving: 12 of 19 titles this century, and seven of the last 10, were won by a No. 1 seed, including UNC in 2017 and Villanova last season.

Virginia’s presence in the Final Four gives the ACC 33 entrants over the 41 years of seeding (80.5 percent of the time). Since multiple entrants were allowed from the same league in 1975, the ACC had 35 representatives in 45 opportunities (77.8 percent).

Remarkably, only one ACC-based program outside North Carolina has ever won an NCAA championship. In fact, a single ACC team outside the Triangle’s Duke, UNC and NC State earned a championship – Maryland in 2002.

Louisville and Syracuse won while members of other leagues. The Terps, of course, are now members of another league.

This is the fifth season in the past six in which no team from outside the power elite crashed the Final Four.