March Madness is Fleeting Like No Other

Trying to build a Final Four team is like catching lightning in a bottle. 

With only 5 players on the court, a few elite players or one superstar can make all the difference. And yet, the better your players, the sooner they leave. 

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Like in any team sport, you need the best players to win. So you'd think that if you got a player like Kevin Durant to come to your school, that would be a program-defining moment. He was the unanimous player of the year, the first freshman to accomplish that. 

Texas won exactly 1 March Madness game with Durant, as a 4 over a 13. They were better the year after Durant left, getting to the Elite Eight. They haven't been back since. One superstar doesn't build a program. 

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You can have a program like Kansas that wins National Championships and owns their conference for a decade. And they can still get bounced in the first round against Bucknell and Bradley. That's part of what makes March Madness must-see TV. But you also know as a fan that nothing is guaranteed. 

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Off the top of my head, I would have said that the best program of the last decade was Kentucky. But Calipari has only won 1 national title there. In 2015 they were 37-0 and in the Final Four but lost to Wisconsin. The only title for Kentucky this century was the one season Anthony Davis played there. They had one shot with Davis and made the most of it. 

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Last year, the stars aligned for Dayton. The last time they've won a March Madness game was 2015. But last year, they went 29-2 and a perfect 18-0 in conference. They had national player of the year Obi Toppin. And they were going to be a #1 seed. And then for the first time in history, the tournament got cancelled. Toppin is now a lottery pick on the Knicks. 

Dayton had one shot with a loaded roster and didn't even get to play. 

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Which brings us to Illinois. Last year, the Illini peaked at 19th in the AP Poll. It was the best they'd been since 2009. And then the tournament got cancelled. It seemed cruel, a lesser degree of what Dayton was experiencing. 

But then Ayo and Kofi came back, at least partly due to the pandemic and all the uncertainty surrounding the NBA. 

So as I type this, it's March and Illinois is peaking at #4 in the AP Poll. Illinois has a game against #2 Michigan tomorrow, but it seems likely that Ayo will miss it due to a broken nose. We're expecting him to return to the lineup, with a protective mask, by the Big Ten Tournament. 

It shows you how fleeting everything can be. This is Illinois best chance for a Final Four since 2005. Will it go the way of Durant or Davis? 

The case for optimism is that this injury forces the rest of the team to step up and they're playing at their best when it matters most. And it would be fitting, that in a year with no fans because of a pandemic, that the national player of the year is wearing a mask in the Final Four.