Duke Blue Devils

Fan Teaser: Week 180 Solution

DouglasTHill2 Comments

Nothing to see here, just a couple of GOATs.

The NCAA Men’s and Women’s Final Fours are this weekend.

The Women will tip it off Friday in Phoenix with a familiar feel to it. The same four schools from last year are back for an encore performance with UCLA playing Texas in one semifinal and Connecticut playing South Carolina in the other. The championship is scheduled for Sunday afternoon.

Geno Auriemma
UConn women’s coach Geno Auriemma holds the net high after winning his 12th NCAA Championship in Tampa last year. (Photo by John Raoux/Associated Press)

The Final Four is nothing new to UConn head coach Geno Auriemma. It will be his 25th appearance on the sidelines for the Huskies in this environment. It’s worth noting there have only been 44 Women’s Final Fours … ever! It’s also worth noting this is the 17th time in the past 18 seasons that an Auriemma-coached UConn team has made this trip. And, should the Huskies wind up cutting the nets down on Sunday it will be his 13th National Championship and the team’s 56th consecutive victory without a loss.

The only other active coach with more than six Final Fours is Auriemma’s opponent Friday, South Carolina’s Dawn Staley has eight (including the last six).

The men tip off Saturday in Indianapolis with UConn facing Illinois in one semifinal and Arizona playing Michigan in the other. The title tilt, as it always is, will be Monday night.

Mike Krzyzewski
Retired Duke men’s basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski holds the net from the Blue Devils’ West Regional Championship in San Francisco during his final season coaching in 2022. (Photo by Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)

Of the four coaches in the Final Four, Danny Hurley is making his third appearance in the past four seasons. That’s still a long way from all-time men’s Final Four appearance leader, retired Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, who made this journey 13 times. His 13th came in his final season on the sidelines (2022) which broke his tie with UCLA legend John Wooden who had a Auriemma-esque nine straight appearances from 1967-1975.

Here’s hoping you enjoy the final weekend of college basketball!

Just to review, The Fan Teaser was the creation of former Ann Arbor News Sports Editor Geoff Larcom. Longtime friend and fellow Ann Arbor News alum, Pat Schutte, took it to heights previously unknown. We aim to keep it alive here at The Sports Fan Project. The cropped photo and the accompanying clue give you an idea as to who or what the image is of. We invite you to use the Comment option to take a crack at solving the Teaser and, if you’re so inclined, participate in some good-spirited banter with your fellow sports fans. The Fan Teaser will appear each Friday morning with the reveal coming to you Sunday.

The Fan Teaser: Week 125 Solution

DouglasTHillLeave a comment
This was doggone close to some serious March Madness!

Back in 2010, Butler University was a cute little over-achieving team from the Horizon League. It had the baby-faced coach in Brad Stevens and, thanks a roster filled with returnees from the previous season (in which it won the Horizon League regular-season championship, earned a nine seed in the NCAA Tournament, and finished the season ranked No. 25 in the final polls), it debuted at No. 10 in the preseason rankings. It remained ranked throughout (dropping to as low as No. 24 and rising to as high as No. 8) and went 18-0 in league play, won both games in the Horizon League Tournament, and entered the NCAA Tournament as a five seed in the West Region.

Still, few expected Butler to go on the run it did, beating the University of Texas-El Paso 77-59, Murray State 54-52, Syracuse 63-59, and Kansas State 63-56 in Regional play to earn its first trip to the NCAA Final Four which just so happened to be in Indianapolis’ Lucas Oil Stadium, a scant 6.2 miles from Butler’s home of Hinkle Fieldhouse.

Butler's Gordon Hayward's last-second shot against Duke in the 2010 NCAA Championship Game.
Butler’s Gordon Hayward launches a final second shot from just inside halfcourt in the closing moment’s of its 2010 NCAA Championship loss to Duke, 61-59. Do you recognize that Duke player (30)? Yep, that’s current Blue Devils’ head coach, Jon Scheyer. (Photo by John Biever/Sports Illustrated)

In its semifinal matchup, Butler defeated defending national runner-up, Michigan State University (the only Big Ten school Butler had never played), 52-50.

Comparisons to the 1986 film, Hoosiers, abounded as tiny Butler (enrollment about 4,500) was the smallest school to play the National Championship since Jacksonville in 1970. Duke, itself a private school with only about 6,500 students, but with three NCAA Championships on its resume at the time, was the David in this David and Goliath story.

A back-and-forth game, it came down to the waning minutes and, utlimately, Butler sophomore Gordon Hayward‘s halfcourt heave that was the subject of this week’s Fan Teaser.

Here’s a wonderful 10-year reflection story (March 2020) from Jim Boeheim, Frank Martin, Tom Izzo, and Mike Krzyzewski (the coaches of Butler’s final four opponents during its tournament run).

As though to prove 2010 was no fluke, Butler – now without Hayward who was the No. 9 draft pick by the Utah Jazz – played in the 2011 National Championship Game as well, losing to UConn, 53-41, in Houston’s Reliant Stadium.

The final two minutes of game action from the 2010 NCAA Championship Game.

Just to review, The Fan Teaser was the creation of former Ann Arbor News Sports Editor Geoff Larcom. Longtime friend and fellow Ann Arbor News alum, Pat Schutte, took it to heights previously unknown. We aim to keep it alive here at The Sports Fan Project. The cropped photo and the accompanying clue give you an idea as to who or what the image is of. We invite you to use the Comment option to take a crack at solving the Teaser and, if you’re so inclined, participate in some good-spirited banter with your fellow sports fans. The Fan Teaser will appear each Friday morning with the reveal coming to you Sunday.