LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Two years ago, when the entire 68-team NCAA men's basketball tournament was played in the state of Indiana because of COVID-19, the unthinkable happened:
Louisville, Kentucky and Indiana — programs with a combined 16 national titles — all whiffed on making the field.
Not the Final Four. Not the Sweet Sixteen. The field.
That was the first time that all three heavyweights missed the party since 1965.
What in the world is going on here? It had to get better.
It has not gotten better. Indigestion reigns.
Take a minute to munch on this:
Going to the Sweet Sixteen once was a snap of the fingers for the Cardinals, Wildcats and Hoosiers. From 1980-89, U of L, UK and IU combined for 19 of 30 possible Sweet Sixteen visits — as well as four national titles. Every local media outlet cooked tournament travel expenses into their budgets.
The slippage began in the 1990s when the Big Three combined for 15 Sweet Sixteens — still 50% but not the production fans expected.
From 2000-09, the number tumbled to nine. But in the previous decade, from 2010-19, the local Sweet Sixteen meter jumped back to 15 — with the Cardinals, Wildcats and Hoosiers all making at least three Sweet Sixteen trips.
I don't have to tell you how many members of the trio will play in the Sweet Sixteen this weekend.
The answer is none. Nada. Zero. Zilch. Forget about it. Irrelevance reigns.
Here is the statistic that set off the flashing lights for me:
Louisville, Kentucky and Indiana have all missed the Sweet Sixteen for three consecutive seasons.
The NCAA men's tournament expanded to 16 teams in 1951. How many times have the Cardinals, Wildcats and Hoosiers gone 0-for-the-Sweet-Sixteen for three consecutive seasons?
The answer, of course, is NEVER. Nada. Zero. Zilch. Forget about it. Irrelevant.
You're looking live at a first.
In a tournament where we're watching Princeton and Florida Atlantic continuing to chase a trip to the Final Four next week in Houston, Louisville, Kentucky and Indiana fans are asking themselves what is going on here?
I believe the time has come to ask: Are the absolute glory days of Louisville, Kentucky and Indiana going, going, gone?
They are until proven otherwise.
Louisville won four games and has posted back-to-back losing seasons. The Cardinals have not won an NCAA Tournament game since 2017. Kenny Payne is 13 months into a total program overhaul from the mess he inherited.
Kentucky has a coach (John Calipari) with a Hall of Fame salary/contract who has not generated Hall of Fame results for more than a half-decade. People question his ability to coach offense, construct rosters and motivate.
The Wildcats have won a single NCAA Tournament game since 2019. After making eight Sweet Sixteens in his first 10 seasons (as well as four Final Fours in his first six seasons), Calipari has watched Alabama, Arkansas and Tennessee zoom past his program.
Indiana just burned through the careers of one of the Hoosiers' greatest all-time players and one-and-done freshman point guard without winning a Big Ten title or surviving to the second weekend of the games that truly matter. Mike Woodson is likely to lose four starters and probably needs to find at least three productive players in the transfer portal.
At Indiana, the record shows no Sweet Sixteens since 2016, no Final Fours since 2002 and no national titles since 1987. Michigan State rules the Big Ten until the Hoosiers do something about it.
As U of L, UK and IU wait for next year (again), programs like Oral Roberts and Loyola (Chicago) in 2021; Saint Peter's and Iowa State (2022) and Princeton and Florida Atlantic (2023) have played on.
That's an Ivy League program that does not dabble in full athletic scholarships as well as a program located in the basketball hot spot of Boca Raton, Florida. FAU entered the 2023 tournament with one NCAA Tournament appearance in program history, an eight-point loss to Alabama in 2002.
The Tigers and Owls do not have arenas like U of L, UK and IU. They do not have practice facilities better than U of L, UK and IU. They don't have the recruiting budgets of U of L, UK or IU.
If you bring together the right coach — who builds the right system with the perfect mix of players — then magic can happen in March. Somehow magic has bypassed Louisville, Lexington and Bloomington.
The transfer portal and NIL resources were supposed to give Louisville, Kentucky and Indiana an even greater advantage than those three programs already had with their edge in money, facilities and tradition.
Hasn't happened. Feels as if the playing field has been leveled.
I understand that the 2023 bracket also shows that Villanova, Duke, North Carolina, Syracuse, Kansas, Purdue, Michigan, Virginia, Ohio State and other high-octane programs are on the sidelines.
There is only one program in the Sweet Sixteen that has won a national title since 2001: Connecticut.
Only four programs remain that have won a national title — UConn, Michigan State, Arkansas and UCLA.
There is a 93.8% chance we will have a coach celebrating his first national title. Tom Izzo is the sole exception. Change is whipping through the game.
What we don't have is Louisville, Kentucky or Indiana playing in the Sweet Sixteen — for the third consecutive tournament.
I never thought I would see that happen. Now it happens every year — and needs to change for the Cards, Wildcats and Hoosiers to become what their fans expect them to be. All three schools need to figure it out.
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