Arizona is ‘scary’ good, but can it outrun history of March Madness flops?

How do you approach your March Madness bracket?

Does history guide your pen? Are you haunted by ghosts of flops from years past?

If so, you’re naturally wary of the Arizona Wildcats. They’re a persistent March fizzler.

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Never mind their 28-2 record or their No. 2 national ranking or the fact they just donned championship shirts after winning the nation’s toughest conference, a Big 12 that absorbed the exits of Texas and Oklahoma a few years ago and rebuilt its basketball product into a beast, thanks to the addition of schools like Arizona.

Never mind the Wildcats just suffocated No. 7 Iowa State, 73-57, a fine team in its own right, good for Arizona’s 14th victory against a Quad 1 opponent.

“I’m super proud of these guys,” coach Tommy Lloyd said on ESPN after the win. “They’ve been on a mission all year.”

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Mission accomplished so far, but teams are remembered for what they do after all the regular-season hardware gets awarded.

Lute Olson’s 2001 Wildcats remain the last Arizona team to make the Final Four.

The stats and the achievements of these Wildcats are all very impressive, worthy of a No. 1 NCAA Tournament seed no matter what happens in the Big 12 Tournament. You’ll find no team more battle-tested, but you don’t need an elephant’s memory to remember Arizona has ventured down this path before without it ending in a Final Four.

Can Arizona shake March Madness history of past quarter-century?

Eleven times in the previous 24 seasons, Arizona earned a No. 4 seed or better in the NCAA Tournament. None of those teams reached the Final Four.

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If flashbacks of those burnouts loom in your mind, you’ll understandably approach these Wildcats cautiously when it’s time to put pen to paper on your bracket in a couple of weeks.

And yet if you shove all that history out of your mind, you’ll see a…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/arizona-scary-good-outrun-history-121450532.html

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Publish date : 2026-03-03 12:14:00

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