William Shakespeare, like so many other bards, would have loved the Final Four

With the 2024-25 college basketball season over, here are notes, observations and guesses about things:

* The way the losing teams unraveled and the winners fought off scenarios that were stacked against them in the Houston-Duke national semifinal and the Houston-Florida title game was the essence of sports.

Houston trailed Duke by 14 points with under 12 minutes left. Houston led Florida by 12 points with under 17 minutes left. The team that was ahead clearly was superiors and headed toward victory. Until they weren’t.

Non-sports fans have perfectly good reasons for not caring. They are, after all, mere games.

However, for those who like drama, who like plots with endings you can never predict with certainty, who like seeing how humans respond under enormous pressure, and who like riding the highest high and lowest low — sometimes in the same five minutes — we know sports is art.

Is there any doubt that William Shakespeare could have gotten at least one good play out of this NCAA tourney? There were two tragedies in a 3-day period. What more could he have wanted?

If not Shakespeare, certainly Hunter S. Thompson could have done something with it.

* The last three Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year and Most Outstanding Tournament Player honorees will be on opposing Big Ten teams next season.

They are Tucker DeVries of Indiana (2023, 2024) and Bennett Stirtz of Iowa (2025). Both played at Drake.

The Bulldogs were 86-19 over those three seasons and went to the NCAA tournament each year. In a state dominated by news about the state university’s teams, the last few years of Drake is Iowa’s best men’s basketball story of the last 20 years.

The best women’s basketball story in our state in that or any other time? I think you know.

* It seems odd to say in an 18-team league, but the Big Ten’s men’s and women’s races have odds-on favorites to win the conference next season.

Purdue’s men has a returning first-team All-America guard in Braden Smith (16.1 points, 8.7 assists per game), forward Trey Kaufman-Renn (20.1 ppg), guard Fletcher Loyer (13.8 ppg), and incoming center Oscar Cluff, who was second in the nation in rebounding this season at South Dakota State with 12.3 per game to go with 17.6 points.

The UCLA women have Lauren Betts, the 6-foot-7 probable favorite to be the national Player of the Year. She averaged 20.2 points and blocked 100 shots. Guard Kiki Rice returns, and she was just named first-team All-Big Ten with Betts.

The Bruins are as good a pick as anyone to win the national title next season.

The Big Ten hasn’t had an NCAA men’s basketball champion since 2000 or a women’s basketball champ since 1999. Maybe it gets both next year.

Nah.

* The television ratings for the men’s Final Four were huge. The semifinals got their best ratings in eight years. Here’s why:

America doesn’t particularly like underdogs.

Nobody wants to see Butler or George Mason in the Final Four. People reveled at St. Peter’s winning twice in an NCAA tourney until faced with the bone-chilling reality they had to watch St. Peter’s again.

The TV people couldn’t have been happier to have all four No. 1 seeds make it to the final weekend. Two years ago, San Diego State beat Florida Atlantic in a national semifinal. The UConn-San Diego State title game of that tourney was the lowest-rated in NCAA history.

The masses want Heinz, not some boutique ketchup. They want Bill Murray, not F. Murray Abraham. They want Duke, not Drake.

* Penn State is in the NCAA men’s hockey tournament’s Frozen Four this week.

If the Nittany Lions prevail, Penn State will be the first school to ever win wrestling and hockey national titles in the same year.

Wisconsin won the NCAA women’s hockey tourney two weeks ago, making it six straight titles in that event for the Big Ten.

That conference has claimed the last 18 NCAA men’s wrestling championships. Penn State has 12, Iowa 4, Michigan and Ohio State one apiece.

UCLA, USC, Oregon and Washington bring zilch to the table in hockey or wrestling. What, pray tell, are they doing out there?

Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com