“I wish there was a way to know you were in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.” – Andy Bernard

Every year, Americans look forward to March Madness like they’re about to enter basketball heaven. I’d say this statement is hyperbolic, but where else are people investing so much emotion into Montana State and UNC Asheville? 

We envision a several-week long stretch of basketball bliss. It’s not “perfect” basketball that we fantasize about; rather, it’s the complete opposite. The more imperfect the tournament, the better (unless your team isn’t the one raising the championship trophy). 

Upsets. Buzzer-beaters. Game-winners. Cinderella stories. We dream of a tournament that will make us feel the widest range of feelings. We want to tell stories of where we were when David conquered Goliath, or when some small school from New Jersey lit millions of brackets on fire, or when that relatively unknown player became the biggest celebrity in college basketball for a week. 

We want to reminisce upon feelings of joy, sadness, shock, awe, satisfaction, anger, and everything in between. If we were to build our ideal March Madness tournament as a roller-coaster, it’d have as many ups, downs, twists and turns as possible, and at the end of it, we want to say how we knew it was all going to happen beforehand. 

Now, what if I told you that all actually happened in 2023?

Well, not the perfect bracket part, but everything we love about the angriest month of the year (plus a couple of days in April) was present in 2023. A 16 seed knocked off a one-seed. A 15 seed made the Sweet 16. Favorites and blue-bloods faltered left and right. There were a handful of electric game-winners, including a buzzer-beater in the Final Four. Schools and players that’d been far from the national spotlight all season got unexpected time under the sun, and some who were already stars burst into supernovas. 

Now, why are we using Ron Hunter as a measure of how flabbergasting this tournament was? And (Bill Tobin voice) who the hell is Ron Hunter anyway?

Back in 2015, Georgia State defeated Georgia Southern in the Sun Belt Conference championship game to punch its ticket to the Big Dance (the final score of that game? You guessed it, 38-36!). GSU’s head coach, Ron Hunter, broke his foot celebrating the victory, relegating the usually-mobile head coach to a rolling chair during his team’s first round matchup against third-seeded Baylor. 

When GSU’s star guard RJ Hunter (Ron’s son) drilled one of the most exhilarating game-winners in tournament history, Ron fell off his chair in disbelief.

The reaction was a perfect encapsulation of the power that March Madness holds: a grown human getting thrown to the ground not because of something pushing him, but something he saw on a basketball court. All it took was one moment to turn a widely unknown player and team into national superstars at the expense of a team who had legitimate national championship aspirations. 

Today, we’re going to use that image of a happily fallen Hunter to tell the story of a wild, wacky and a common-sense deprived 2023 NCAA Tournament by rating each major moment/storyline out of 5 Ron Hunters. I guess Americans truly will use anything but the metric system.

“Hurley and the Huskies’ dreams come true!”

I feel like the end is a good place to start here, with UConn dominating San Diego State in the title game to claim the program’s fifth national championship. 

Once again, chaos reigned over the tournament like a dictator. With all four one-seeds losing before the Sweet 16 for the first time ever and a handful of other favorites bowing out early, the Final Four felt like an NCAA dynasty simulation gone too far. The last four teams standing were…

• Florida Atlantic, a nine-seed who didn’t even have a basketball program until 1993 and had only made one NCAA Tournament appearance since then. Their head coach, Dustin May, wanted to quit almost immediately upon accepting the job back in 2018 after seeing FAU’s downtrodden basketball facilities in-person for the first time.
• Miami (FL), a five-seed who took down several title contenders en route to their first F4 appearance despite having one of the statistically worst defenses amongst the tourney’s best seeds.
• San Diego State, a five-seed that beat the number one overall seed (Alabama) on their way to their first F4 appearance.

And then, there was UConn, who was the best team in college basketball for arguably multiple stretches of the season and already had four national titles to its name. 

Despite the historical unruliness of this year’s tournament, it was the Huskies that ended up being the last team standing with one of the most dominant title runs in college basketball Literally only three other teams have dominated in March like the Huskies have. UConn’s smallest margin of victory was 13 against Miami (FL) – the only other champions to win each of their games by at least double-digits in the modern-bracket era are 2000 Michigan State, 2001 Duke and 2009 North Carolina.  

All tournament long, it felt like there were more than five Huskies on the court on both ends of the floor. Their athleticism was overwhelming; their length and size were intimidating; their set plays on offense were a little mesmerizing. Trying to guard them was like trying to guard an avalanche, and trying to score on them felt like trying to score over a mountain range. 

Don’t let the four next to their name fool you. The Huskies were a juggernaut that not only escaped the grasp of March, but defeated it convincingly. 

Ron Hunter Scale: 3 Ron Hunters 

“A San Diego State miracle!”

Let’s watch the shot one more time.

This was a reminder of how epic a buzzer-beater can be, especially when it turns a loss from a win like it did here. Time freezes for a moment; everything outside of the court ceases to mentally exist. When the shot goes up, a liminal (or “in-between”) space is created; many watching are about to experience either one of the best moments of their life or one of the worst. 

Then, BANG. The shot falls. A faction of people ascend to emotional heaven, and for the shot-maker, it’s a dream realized. Another faction of people have their hearts ripped out, which is exactly what Lamont Butler did to Owl country. 

This buzzer-beater had everything. While I’m not the biggest fan of hosting tournaments at neutral sites, playing a basketball game in a football stadium makes it feel like the game is happening on stage; it feels a little Space Jam-y. So you have the bright lights of NRG Stadium plus a packed crowd. Then, the shot; it was a perfect swish that you could feel. The crowd goes crazy. Butler is mobbed by his teammates. It’s what you dream about shooting hoops in your driveway. Meanwhile, the FAU players all stand in shock, looking like they’re about to collapse like Michael Cooper after Ralph Sampson ended the Lakers’ season in 1986. It was all so…majestic!

This shot was relatively improbable, with one reason being the path both teams took to get here. The Aztecs made it to Houston despite drawing a rugged path (Charleston, Furman, Alabama and Creighton, the last of which they got by with the help of a semi-controversial foul call) while also having scoring droughts of at least 3:40 in every game they played. The Owls survived a war against Memphis, took down 16-seeded Fairleigh Dickinson, then triumphed as underdogs over two very good teams in Tennessee and Kansas State. 

Then, there was the actual game. FAU was up by 14 in the second half, but the Aztecs roared back. During the final sequence, SDSU’s two best scorers, Darion Trammell and Matt Bradley, were on the bench. Butler, who’d scored just seven points prior to the last shot, was mere centimeters from stepping out of bounds with few seconds remaining that likely would’ve ended the game. Think of a decorated soldier going into battle without his two best weapons and almost dying a few times, then winning.

Unfortunately, SDSU’s inability to score for long periods of time couldn’t be overcome against UConn, as they went on a field goal drought of 11 minutes and eight seconds in the first half, a hole which they were never able to emerge from. 

Despite the loss, it was a breakthrough tournament for a program that’d been on the up over the past decade plus, but couldn’t catch a break in March. The Aztecs kept falling victim to better teams in the Big Dance, and their best season in program history was canceled because of COVID. But they’ll forever have this run to look back on fondly, and they’ll forever have a moment where they felt like their hearts were sent to paradise. 

Ron Hunter Scale: 5 Ron Hunters

“FDU believe it?!”

First off, 10/10 line by TNT play-by-play commentator Andrew Catalon. It was a perfect use of play-on words, the shock value was through the roof, and he got a powerful message across in just three words. That’s postseason-level commentating!

Ok, the actual game. I’ve already used the David/Goliath label which, for those who aren’t familiar with how the term applies to sports, describes an inferior player/team (David) defeating a superior player/team (Goliath).

To quickly summarize the actual story of David and Goliath, David is a tiny warrior, and Goliath is a very large warrior (he allegedly stood at 6’9”). They are on two opposite sides of a battle, and David’s side is too scared to go meet Goliath and Co. to engage in war. 

We have never seen David and Goliath in as much of a literal sense as FDU and Purdue. The Knights ranked last in the entire country in average height (73.4 inches, which is a little over 6’1”). Purdue, on the other hand, had an average height of 78.6 inches (a little over 6’5”), good for one of the tallest marks in the country. Their 7’4” behemoth, Zach Edey, could not have had a more favorable matchup: FDU’s tallest regular rotation player, Ansley Alomonor, was 6’6”. 

Also, FDU shouldn’t have even made the tournament in the first place. They lost to Merrimack in the NEC Championship game, but since Merrimack was still in the final year of their transition period from Division II to Division I, they were ineligible for the Big Dance, allowing the Knights to take their spot as the second place team. 

The Knights were ranked 68th out of 68 teams in the field, and thus relegated to the First Four. They were short and represented the statistically worst conference in the nation according to KenPom, one that they didn’t even win in the first place. When head coach Tobin Anderson told his team in the locker room after their First Four victory that the more he watched Purdue, the more he thought FDU could beat them, people thought he was silly. Even he thought that, later walking back the overwhelming sense of confidence.

By the end of the night, the UMBC men and Harvard women had some company. 

So how the heck did this happen? The plan was simple: make anyone other than Edey do literally anything. Edey had 21 points, 15 rebounds and three blocks, but the rest of the Boilermakers completely derailed when FDU kept double-teaming Edey. Purdue shot 5 of 26 from three and couldn’t penetrate a wall of small, mighty Knights. FDU knew that they couldn’t win defensive matchups one-on-one, so they used all of their Davids to conquer Goliath; the sum proved greater than their parts. 

The Knights carried over the same fearless mentality on offense, which was led by 5’8” lightning rod Demetre Roberts, who came over with Anderson from DII St. Thomas Aquinas. Roberts, who hails from New York City, has the same mentality of small NYC guards that came before him in that they fear literally nothing on a basketball court. 

Take this play as an example. Roberts flies by one Purdue defender, then is met by Edey. A normal 5’8” person would likely be deterred by Edey’s mere presence; the only issue is that ROBERTS DOES NOT CARE. Prime Shaq could’ve been awaiting Roberts, and I’m relatively confident he’d still go up for a layup like he did here.

This isn’t arguably the biggest upset in college basketball history; this is the biggest upset in college basketball history. There was little, if any indication that FDU could take down Purdue, yet there they were, solidifying themselves in the New Jersey March Madness Hall of Fame along with Princeton and Saint Peter’s. 

There was one part about the David/Goliath story I left out: When David’s army wouldn’t engage in battle, David stepped forward and, without a speck of fear, walked towards Goliath with five rocks in his shepherd’s bag and a hyper-slingshot. David takes a rock, puts it into the hyper-slingshot and drills Goliath right between the eyes. Goliath dies, and his army runs away in fear. 

FDU knew they couldn’t beat Purdue straight up, so, like David did all those years ago, took their slingshots and knocked out Purdue to etch their name into March Madness history books. They weren’t just fairly Dickinson. They were extremely Dickinson!

Ron Hunter Scale: 6 Ron Hunters

“Princeton’s gonna keep dancing!”

When looking at mid-major conferences who make the most noise in March, the Ivy League is one of the louder ones in the nation that produced some of the more memorable upsets in March Madness history. Yale outrebounded Baylor by just five in an upset of the Bears in 2016, but that was apparently too much for a reporter that asked Taurean Prince about BU getting outrebounded, which prompted Prince to walk the reporter through the process of how to get a rebound in one of the funnier post game pressers ever. Harvard pulled upsets in 2013 and 2014, and Cornell made it all the way to the Sweet 16 in 2010.

But the loudest team from this storied conference is arguably Princeton. They’ve played a handful of overdogs close, including a one-point loss to top-seeded Georgetown in 1989 that quelled alleged talks of eliminating automatic bids to the Big Dance (thank goodness!). The Tigers took down defending national champion UCLA in 1996 as a 13 seed, and their last tournament win was in 1998 after a historically awesome 26-win regular season that saw them finish in the top ten of the AP Poll. 

The 2022-23 Tigers had a chance to add to their school’s reputation of playing well when basketball games mattered the most, but they faced an uphill battle. After securing an automatic bid to the tournament, Princeton faced heavily-favored Arizona in the Round of 64 who sported one of the best offensive units in the nation. AU  won their last 33 games dating back to January 2020 when their opponent shot 25% or worse from downtown, which is what Princeton did.

Stats. History. Common sense. LOL. 

Princeton diced up Arizona and Missouri just like they did against UCLA and Georgetown back in the day: a whole lot of ball movement, timely backdoor cuts and stingy defense. It was a fun little flashback to the Pete Carril days, as the Tigers became the third 15 seed in the past three tournaments to advance to the Sweet 16 while also doing calculus homework. Never underestimate a bunch of disciplined Ivy Leaguers in March!

Ron Hunter Scale: 4 Ron Hunters

“DID WE JUST SEE WHAT WE THINK WE JUST SAW??? WOW!!!”

Virginia’s offense can be categorized by three adjectives: slow, steady and fundamental. They love to pass the ball, and they pass it intelligently. While their offensive possessions might take awhile, it’s because they’re ensuring that they get the best shot possible. They also don’t turn the ball over a lot; the Cavaliers have been atop the nation in assist-to-turnover ratio for years and were tops in the nation this season.  

Their starting point guard, Kihei Clark, is one of the steadiest point guards in college basketball. The fifth-year senior is a sharp decision-maker; his assist-to-turnover ratio was amongst the best in the nation this past season. In a way, Clark is Virginia basketball; he’s calm, collected and passes the ball with not just elite effectiveness, but he finds teammates proactively. Clark is also small and speedy, which is especially helpful under heavy ball pressure.

So, hypothetically, if a team were to press full-court late in a game to try and force a turnover, UVA would be one of the worst teams to face on paper. They have one of the smartest and most sure-handed guards in the nation who plays for a team that doesn’t make a lot of mistakes with the basketball. 

Welp. 

These 26 seconds perfectly embody March Madness; everything on paper says that one thing should happen, then the complete opposite thing happens, and we all just sit there in shock, struggling to grasp what the hell we just witnessed. 

Clark’s heart was in the right place. He was stuck, and if he didn’t get rid of the ball quickly, it was likely going to be a turnover on UVA’s side of the court, which is the last thing the Hoos wanted. The two most likely outcomes were a jump ball (the possession arrow favored Furman, so a turnover) or a five-second violation for holding the ball too long (also a turnover). The best option? Throw the ball as far down court as possible, because that kills time while also backing the opponent up closer to their own basket; the chuck would essentially act as a punt. 

There’s actually historical precedent to this. In Game 6 of the 1991 Western Conference Finals between the Blazers and Lakers, Blazers guard Terry Porter missed a potential game-winner with just a few seconds remaining. Magic Johnson took the rebound with about three seconds left and threw the ball over his head into the backcourt. The reason that the L.A. Times called it the “greatest pass Magic Johnson ever threw” was because no one was there to retrieve the ball, and its uninterrupted roll ran out the clock, clinching an NBA Finals appearance for the Lakers. 

However, there were a few reasons why this didn’t work for Clark. Remember when I said that being small is, in a way, advantageous against a press? Well, Clark missed a pair of open teammates in the backcourt because he literally couldn’t see over the two Furman defenders trapping him. 

Secondly, there was too much time on the clock; a big reason why Johnson’s heave worked was because there were only three seconds left. When Clark decided to chuck the ball, there were still 8.2 seconds left. Also, Clark picked up his dribble with 9.3 seconds left, meaning that he could’ve held onto the ball for a little longer.

All in all, it was one of the crazier finishes to a March Madness game in recent memory. It was also an electric start to Furman’s first tournament appearance since 1980, when their head coach, Bob Richey, wasn’t even in Kindergarten yet, and ESPN was barely six months old.

As for Virginia, the Cavs added to their lengthy history of being upset. The Hoos have now lost to a team seeded at least three seeds lower than them for the SIXTH TIME since 2014, the most of any team in a nine-year span. At least they’re consistent!

Ron Hunter Scale: 5 Ron Hunters

“If you haven’t watched her, you’re doing yourself a disservice as a college basketball fan.” 

In sports, there’s a type of superstardom that only a select few athletes achieve. It’s when one athlete impacts a sport in other ways besides them being awesome at it. They become a one-person spectacle, a metaphorical firework that we eagerly await to go off every time they have the opportunity to do something amazing. 

Take Stephen Curry and LeBron James for example. Before I say what I’m about to say, I should preface with this:

I AM NOT SAYING CURRY IS BETTER THAN LEBRON. 

I AM NOT SAYING CURRY IS BETTER THAN LEBRON. 

I AM NOT SAYING CURRY IS BETTER THAN LEBRON.  

With that being said…

LeBron is arguably the greatest basketball player that has ever walked this Earth. But while he’s higher on the all-time player list than Curry, every time he touches the basketball  preemptively boards fans on a rocketship to a land of basketball euphoria. 

Caitlin Clark entered that stratosphere long ago. The 2019-20 Gatorade Player of the Year in Iowa has been tearing up defenses since at least high school. She was too good to play in a girl’s AAU league, so she joined a boy’s team that went on to win the state championship. 

Her star continued to shine in Iowa. She led all of Division I in scoring her freshman year, led Division I in both scoring and assists the following season, then led the nation in assists this season. Several scoring outbursts were superior to Iowa’s football team, where their scores count for more than double than in basketball. 

Many women’s basketball players amazed us before…but not like this. Her passing skill has been rivaled by few, but Clark’s range is something that women’s basketball has truly never seen before; it’s reminiscent of Curry’s explosion almost a decade ago when he left people stunned at how someone could hit shots from so far away so consistently. 

The only problem is that the Hawkeyes kept losing early in the Big Dance. In 2021, they fell to top-seeded UConn in the Sweet 16, then were stunned on a game-winner against tenth-seeded Creighton the following year by former Hawkeye Lauren Jenson. Clark never got the chance to show out under the brightest of lights, where she was consistently awesome this season. She dropped 42 on Maryland, 34-9-9 against Indiana and 30-10-17 against Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship.

She finally got her chance in 2023. Against fellow superstar Haley Van Lith and third-seeded Louisvlle in the Sweet 16, Clark went ballistic, hanging eight threes and a 41-point triple-double on the Cardinals. Forget a 40-point triple-double; it was the first recorded 30-point triple-double in both men’s and women’s tournament history (Oscar Robertson did it while at Cincinnati, but assists weren’t an official stat at the time). 

Up next was defending national champion South Carolina, who hadn’t lost a game in over a year. They hadn’t allowed a 25-point scorer all season, and eight of their 37 games ended with their opponent scoring less than 40 points. So naturally, Clark dropped 41 again to take down the Gamecocks en route to Iowa’s first national championship appearance. 

The dream ended at the hands of LSU, but her mark had been made. Forget the trash talking. Forget the overblown controversy. Clark played a humongous role in getting people to pay attention to women’s basketball more than ever before. This year’s women’s tournament broke viewership records, and Clark established herself as the main character. 

The best part about all of this? Clark will be back next year, as will several other women’s college basketball stars in Paige Beuckers, Angel Reese, Van Lith, Cameron Brink and several others because of the NCAA’s rule preventing women’s college basketball players from going pro until after their senior season. While this rule might seem silly (think of the NBA without the past four NBA Draft classes – Zion Williamson would be a rookie next season under these rules), it keeps the sport filled with star power for several years instead of just one, and I couldn’t be more excited. 

Ron Hunter Scale: 4.1 Ron Hunters

“He’s on the S in March Madness!” 

One of my favorite kinds of shots in basketball is the “NONONO-YES!” shot. It’s a shot that seems completely dumbfounding until it goes in; your emotions go from one end of the spectrum to the other in just a few seconds, which is a lot to handle in such a short amount of time! 

Think back to the RJ Hunter shot from earlier. There were still 4.5 seconds left when Hunter pulled up from over 30 feet away; sure, that offensive possession was going nowhere, but there was still time to do something. TNT color commentator Steve Lappas perfectly encapsulated the feeling of these shots; he went from “what are they doing???” to “that is one of the most incredible things I’ve seen” in less than 30 seconds. 

When Julian Strawther pulled up from a similar spot late in Gonzaga’s Sweet 16 clash with UCLA, there were still nine seconds left, which made me think that he didn’t know how much time was on the clock. I was confused. Many others were probably confused. 

Strawther was also just 2/7 from downtown prior to the shot. He could’ve been 2/70, and it still wouldn’t have mattered. Strawther let it fly with the same confidence he had when he dropped 40 against Portland earlier this season. Bullseye. 

When the shot went in, I instantly thought “huh, that kind of looked like the Villanova play. Y’know, the one they ran to make Kris Jenkins a college basketball legend.” (That was paraphrased for clarity. My actual thoughts were something like “what the hell is he-AAAAHHHHHH WOWOWOW). And it turns out that Gonzaga had not only practiced that play before, it was in fact inspired by Villanova! 

The shot was the cherry on top of yet another UCLA-Gonzaga tournament classic. The Bruins led by 13 with 16:49 remaining, only for the Bulldogs to go on a 34-11 run, which included a UCLA field goal drought of 11 minutes and 16 seconds (droughts continued to affect California on the court as well as off the court). RJ Hunter would’ve appreciated this one. 

Ron Hunter Scale: 4.5 Ron Hunters

“Next stop: Seattle. Ole Miss to the Sweet 16!”

Tara VanderVeer has been the head coach of Stanford women’s basketball for every season except two since the team was formed in 1981 – one was Stanford’s inaugural season, and the other was because VanderVeer was coaching the US national team. 

As head coach, she’d only missed the Big Dance once, which was her first season at Stanford. Since 1987-88, Stanford has made every single NCAA Tournament; not only that, they’d missed the Sweet 16 just six times, with three of them being when Stanford was a seven seed or lower. 

Combine that with the fact that every no. 1 seed in the women’s tournament since 2010 had made the Sweet 16 (96 consecutive home wins against lower-seeded opponents), you could almost guarantee that Stanford would make it to the second weekend of the tournament, so naturally, they put up one of their worst offensive performances in recent memory in a Round of 32 exit against eighth-seeded Ole Miss.

Ole Miss completely flustered Stanford with a style of defense that the San Diego State men’s team would be proud of. The usually-disciplined Lady Cardinal turned the ball over 20 times. Everyone not named Haley Jones or Cameron Brink shot 5/20 from the field. Stanford shot just seven three-pointers, their second-lowest mark since the 2014-15 season. The Rebels, who were one of the better defenses in college basketball this season, dragged the Lady Cardinal into the mud, and Stanford couldn’t get out. Three cheers for defense!

Ron Hunter Scale: 4.5 Ron Hunters

“This is a bad boy right here.” 

When we think about types of teams in March Madness, the first groups we think of are the Cinderellas and the favorites. However, there’s a type of team in March Madness that shows up every so often that I think needs to be discussed more. 

It’s the 2-5 seed that’s not exactly a favorite to win the whole thing, but they’re tough as nails, and they have at least one player who turns into a basketball messiah for a week on a semi-unexpectedly deep tournament run. Those teams are super fun! 

One of my favorite teams in this category is Purdue in 2019, a three seed who just barely missed the Final Four. Carsen Edwards averaged almost 35 points per game, including two separate 42-point explosions against Villanova and Virginia. Another member of the Short King Hall of Fame!

I also thought of Oklahoma in 2016, a two seed who actually did make it to the Final Four. Buddy Hield averaged 29 points per game in OU’s first four games, including a 37-point eruption against top-seeded Oregon in the Elite Eight. Other teams in this category I’ve particularly enjoyed include third-seeded BYU in 2011 (Jimmer-mania!) and third-seeded Marquette in 2003 (not like I was alive for this or anything, but watching Dwyane Wade dominate in college is always fun! Thank goodness for YouTube). 

This year, it was Kansas State, the three seed in the East region that made it all the way to the Elite Eight. Although they fell just short of the Final Four, the Wildcats took college basketball by storm for about a week while becoming the coolest group of Lil’ Baby fans in the nation. 

K-State’s shining star was Markquis Nowell who, similarly to Demetre Roberts, is like if New York City was a point guard. The Harlem native’s Twitter handle is literally @MrNewYorkCityy, and his background profile picture reads “underestimate me so I can embarrass you.” 

On the court, although he stands at just 5’7”, Nowell fears nothing; he’ll attack any defender, shoot from anywhere and make any pass, and it’ll always have a splash of flair. The best part is that most of the time, it works.

Take this play as an example. With a minute to go in a tied Sweet 16 game (a situation where shenanigans should not be happening) Nowell seemed to get into a fake argument with K-State head coach Jerome Tang, then threw a no-look alley-oop to Keyontae Johnson for a go-ahead slam. 

Although we never found out if that was a designed play or not, it was one of the gutsiest, yet most flawlessly executed funny basketball plays I’ve ever seen under high-pressure circumstances. And that wasn’t even his first no-look alley-oop of the tournament!

Nowell finished that game with a tournament record 19 assists as well as five steals, including a game-sealing strip of fellow NYC guard Tyson Walker to send K-State to the Elite Eight. Nowell’s encore was a 30-point, 12 assist masterclass in a loss to Florida Atlantic. 

On March 29, Nowell declared for the NBA Draft. I have no idea what his future entails, but he solidified his spot in the tiny NYC point guard Hall of Fame alongside the likes of Mark Jackson, Sebastian Telfair, Kemba Walker and Jose Alvarado. 

As for K-State, sure, it was their third consecutive Elite Eight loss to a lower-seeded team. In 2018, they fell to eleventh-seeded Loyola Chicago, and in 2010, they bowed out to fifth-seeded Butler. However, the Wildcats became one of the most lovable teams in the nation in less than a month. It was another lesson that, in the words of Tang, when you love people, it’s amazing what you can accomplish. 

Ron Hunter Scale: 3 Ron Hunters