The NCAA Tournament will be held this year without a couple of its traditional Blue Bloods — Kentucky and D꧅uke — for the first time since 1976.
But Jim Boeheim — who started his coaching career 🧸at Syracuse the following season — has the Orange in the Big Dance for the 35th time in his 45 years 🌠at the upstate powerhouse.
Syracuse (16-9)🐓 was considered a bubble team after posting just one Quad 1 vict🎐ory before losing at the buzzer to Virginia in the quarterfinals of the ACC Tournament. But the Orange avoided playing in the First Four and landed a No. 11 seed in the Midwest Region to face No. 6 San Diego State in its first game.
“I h🐷ad a pretty good feeling we’d be in from everything we’ve heard, but you never know. Until you see it up there, you’re very nervous,” the 76-year-old Boeheim told the school’s website. “Obviously, at different points this year, people completely counted us out of any chance to be in this tournament.
“These guys just never listened, they never bought into that thinking. They just were determined to find a wa✅y. … We’re very happy to be in the NCAA’s.”
Meanwhile, Kentucky (9-16) and Duke (13-11), the programs with the most and fourth-most wins in NCAA Division I history, officially are out in the same year for ไthe first time in more than four decades.
The Wildcats missed the Big D⭕ance for the first time since 2013 and only the second in John Calipari’s 12 seasons in Lexington. Kentucky endured its first losing campaign since 1988-89 (13-19) under Eddie Sutton, leading to Rick Pitino’s hiring the following year.
Duke (13-11) had to forfeit its ACC Tournament quarterfinal game to Florida State 💎due to a positive test, ending the Blue Devils’ string of NCAA appearancꦯes at 24 since they last missed in 1995.
A couple of other big names face u🍃ncertainties due to COVID-19 protocol issues. Kansas, which is second on that all-time victory list, is included in the field as a No. 3 seed desp𒊎ite the Jayhawks’ forfeit to Texas in the Big 12 Tournament due to a positive COVID-19 test. Virginia, the No. 4 seed in that region, also withdrew from the ACC Tournament for COVID reasons.
North Carolina, third on the all-time wins list after going 18-10 this season, also is in the field for the 16th time in 17 seasons, as a No. 8 seed🧜 in the Midwest Region, facing Wisconsin in its first game.
Perhaps the most interesting development 🧔among traditional blue bloods involves the First Four play-in game for the No. 11 seed in the East between Michigan State 🐻(15-12) and UCLA (17-9).
The Spartans were the ninth team to be selected ou🎀t of the Big 10, extending Tom Izzo’s tournament streak in East Lansing﷽ to 25 years. Michigan State reached the Final Four in 2019, losing to Texas Tech.
UCLA, the all-time leader with 11 NCAA titles (most recently in 1995), also received one of the final at-large bids despite losing to eventual-champion Oregon State in the Pac-12 Co♌nference Tournament.
“Where it is, is where it lands,” NCAA♐ Tournament committee chair Mitch Barnhart said on the CBS Selection Show. “They are two teams we are thrilled to 🐷have in the field, and we thought it would be a heck of a way to start the tournament off.”
Louisville is another storied program on the outside, for now. The Cardinals are listed as one of the “First Four Out” teams that will be on standby if another multi-bid conference team withdraws due🌄 to COVID-19 issues before the tournament begins.
Barnhart indicated Louisville (13-7) lജikely was hurt by the unexpected power-conference tournament r🌌uns by Georgetown and Oregon State, taking away two at-large bids.