NCAA Tournament: Ranking the unlikeliest Final Four runs since 2000
By Joey Loose
2. 2011 VCU (11-seed)
There’s so much backstory here, so we’ll just share the headlines. VCU was a good mid-major program doing decent work in the CAA, but it’s a program that had lost its last two head coaches to power conference teams and was starting over again with Shaka Smart, a former assistant at Clemson and Florida. The world knew little about these Rams and even less about Smart, but they were about to become believers after a magical run through March.
VCU’s season was actually quite a mixed bag. They had some impressive play at times, getting wins over UCLA, Wake Forest, and Wichita State during the season, but really were struggling down the stretch. The Rams lost their last four conference games to finish 4th in the CAA and fell in the championship game of that conference tournament. Fortunately, this was the first season after the NCAA Tournament expanded to 68 teams and the Rams were surprisingly sent to Dayton as part of the first-ever First Four.
Many considered the Rams, the 4th place team in the CAA, as a shocking selection, but what VCU did next was far more shocking. VCU won a slew of impressive games over power conference programs, starting with double-digit wins over 11-seed USC in the First Four, 6-seed Georgetown in the second round, and 3-seed Purdue in the third round. Advancing to their first Sweet Sixteen was not enough, as Smart’s Rams knocked out 10-seed Florida State in an overtime thriller. They got an incredible fifth win in the Tournament by upended top-seeded Kansas in the Elite Eight, finishing the remarkable journey from First Four to Final Four.
On Selection Sunday, Jamie Skeen, Joey Rodriguez and the rest of this roster were pleasantly surprised to make the Tournament field and they weren’t about to let the Selection Committee regret their inclusion. Even as pundits questioned their inclusion, they embarked one of the most incredible runs through the NCAA Tournament, beating teams from five different power conferences before falling in the Final Four.