What are the odds?

 

Final Four trivia and odd coincidence time.

Florida’s got a rematch with UCLA in the Final Four, a rematch of last year’s title game. It seems like it shouldn’t happen, but has been pretty frequent in past NCAA Tournaments.

(This post doesn’t include the early-round games. Villanova beat Florida in a 2005 second-round game, and the Gators beat the Wildcats in the Elite Eight last season. Those happen quite a bit.)

Cal and Cincinnati played each other in ’59 and ’60 Final Fours, Cal winning both. Ohio State, Cincy played in back-to-back title games in ’61, ’62, Bears cats won both. UCLA topples Houston in ’67 and ’68 Final Fours. Duke beat Kansas in ’96, Kansas beat Duke in ’88; Kansas tops UNC in ’91, UNC wins in ’93 (not exactly rematches, but close enough).

And the closest to this year’s version, UNLV whips Duke in the 1990 title game and the Devils beat UNLV in their 1991 Final Four rematch. I’m not here to make a prediction, though. (My bracket is a debacle — not a single Final Four team! — and I learned after that first weekend to stop picking against Florida. So now more predictions this season.)

So here’s my favorite tidbit from this year’s tourney:

Florida, Georgetown and Ohio State all played in the same half of the Minneapolis (Midwest) Regional last season. The No. 7 Hoyas KO’d No. 2 Ohio State in the second round, then No. 3 Florida beat Georgetown. Three teams from the same region end up in the next year’s Final Four? That should be a rare occurrence — except it’s happened twice before.

In 1997, No. 1 Kentucky beat No. 2 Utah in the West Regional final. Utah was coming off a win over No. 6 Stanford. All three ended up in the 1998 Final Four (Where the Wildcats beat the Utes for the crown).

In 1994, Arkansas, UCLA and Oklahoma State were in the Midwest Regional, but didn’t play each other (Bruins upset by No. 12 Tulsa, which also beat No. 4 Oklahoma State, but lost to the No. 1 Hogs).

Anyway, it’s kind of a worthless tidbit — it relies good teams coincidently landing in the same region and winning out the next season — but pretty fun. As a guy who loves Trivial Pursuit, its gold.

• For those who have tried to e-mail lately with the mailbag, my apologies. Technial errors prevented anyone form using it. Anyway, for those Kentucky fans who wanted to e-mail coaches candidates, fire away. Any other criticisms, send those too. Responses coming later this week. Promise.

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