Why have these cinderella runs become more frequent?
That makes six times (with seven teams) over the past 13 seasons that a mid-major reached the penultimate games of the college basketball season. So, why does it seem like mid-major teams in the final four is becoming a more frequent occurrence than in the 20 years prior to 2006? Moser says, “I don’t know if I’m surprised, I don’t care if you’re a mid-major or a blue blood, you need the ball to bounce your way a couple of times. You need to win some close games and you need to have momentum.”
Moser also points out other reasons, “I just think there’s such balance now, one of the things that we had, but we were able to be old. We had three seniors and two fourth-year juniors.” He also points out that being old can be important. “Sometimes at our level, we don’t get the one-and-dones, we’ve gotta develop some guys.”
One other common thread of some of the previous mid-major Final Four teams was the level of talent on their teams. Moser laughingly says, “I will say, they had pros. Shelvin Mack, Gordon Hayward, you know Wichita State had (Fred) VanVleet, (Ron) Baker.”
The last common thread that Moser mentions, may just be the most important, the team’s attitude. “We really felt we were gonna win it all. We weren’t just happy to be there, I think one thing in common is, all of us weren’t just happy to be in the tournament. I think we really believed we could win. You start to get that belief that you can just beat anybody.” He says that is what happened to his Loyola squad two years ago, the momentum and belief kept building.