Blue bloods, avert your eyes.
This has been an NCAA tournament to forget for several of college basketball's traditional powers. Kentucky joined the men's tournament exodus on Sunday, courtesy of Kansas State. With the loss, Kentucky joined Kansas and Duke in failing to advance to the Sweet 16. North Carolina, meanwhile, didn't even make the tournament after starting the season as the nation's No. 1 team.
Between them, the four programs have a combined 24 national championships. That's a lot of basketball royalty sitting on the couch. Their collective absence is a rare occurrence.to the Sweet 16 every season. Seeing two or more in the tournament's second weekend was not unexpected. But now the Sweet 16 is missing all four programs for the second time in three seasons. It also happened in 2021.
That's probably going too far. Just last year, Duke, North Carolina and Kansas all advanced to the Final Four with Kansas beating North Carolina for the national championship. But the consistency of days past might be harder to come by in an ever-evolving college basketball landscape that includes the relatively new elements of NIL and the transfer portal.
Those elements should favor the established powers, but they also raise the specter of increased volatility. North Carolina and Duke are also undergoing significant coaching transitions with the recent retirements of Roy Williams and Mike Krzyzewski.
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