Almost nobody thought Syracuse was going to be in the Final Four
If you have 10-seed Syracuse in your bracket's Final Four, you are probably feel pretty smug: Only 0.4 percent of NCAA men's basketball tournament brackets listed the Orange progressing to the Final Four, SB Nation reports. And for a smart reason reason, too: Syracuse's defeat of top-seeded Virginia on Sunday was historic. No 10th-seeded team has ever made the Final Four.
The number of people who predicted this insane Final Four matchup — Villanova vs. Oklahoma, and Syracuse vs. North Carolina — is expectedly small, too. Of the 13 million people to have filed brackets with ESPN, only 1,140 predicted the Final Four to look the way it does right now.
Even more incredibly, Cinderella-story Syracuse almost didn't even make the bracket in the first place:
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Syracuse wasn't supposed to make the dang NCAA Tournament. The Orange had a legitimately lackluster season. They went 9-9 in the ACC. They lost a game to garbage St. John's. St. John's! After beating Syracuse, St. John's went on to lose 21 of their final 22 games.Syracuse had an RPI ranking of 68, lower than any team ever selected to make the NCAA Tournament with an at-large bid. They had more losses to teams that missed the NCAA Tournament (five) than they had wins against teams that made it (three). Of 144 bracketologists represented in the Bracket Matrix, less than half considered the Orange a tourney team. [SB Nation]
Syracuse will meet top seed North Carolina Saturday evening. While North Carolina is the heavy favorite (-9.5), Syracuse's incredible progression is proof that in March Madness, anything can happen.
-
Tea with Judi Dench: ‘touching’ show is must-watch Christmas TVThe Week Recommends The national treasure sits down with Kenneth Branagh at her country home for a heartwarming ‘natter’
-
Codeword: December 24, 2025The daily codeword puzzle from The Week
-
Sudoku medium: December 24, 2025The daily medium sudoku puzzle from The Week
-
Son arrested over killing of Rob and Michele ReinerSpeed Read Nick, the 32-year-old son of Hollywood director Rob Reiner, has been booked for the murder of his parents
-
Rob Reiner, wife dead in ‘apparent homicide’speed read The Reiners, found in their Los Angeles home, ‘had injuries consistent with being stabbed’
-
Hungary’s Krasznahorkai wins Nobel for literatureSpeed Read László Krasznahorkai is the author of acclaimed novels like ‘The Melancholy of Resistance’ and ‘Satantango’
-
Primatologist Jane Goodall dies at 91Speed Read She rose to fame following her groundbreaking field research with chimpanzees
-
Florida erases rainbow crosswalk at Pulse nightclubSpeed Read The colorful crosswalk was outside the former LGBTQ nightclub where 49 people were killed in a 2016 shooting
-
Trump says Smithsonian too focused on slavery's illsSpeed Read The president would prefer the museum to highlight 'success,' 'brightness' and 'the future'
-
Trump to host Kennedy Honors for Kiss, StalloneSpeed Read Actor Sylvester Stallone and the glam-rock band Kiss were among those named as this year's inductees
-
White House seeks to bend Smithsonian to Trump's viewSpeed Read The Smithsonian Institution's 21 museums are under review to ensure their content aligns with the president's interpretation of American history
