The 2021 NCAA Basketball Tournament and season have come to a close, but a new season always provides new data and new stories to tell about that data. In the 2021 NCAA Tournament, one storyline was the apparent ease at which No. 2 seed Houston was able to reach the Final Four. The Cougars’ path to the final weekend went through a No. 15 seed (Cleveland State), a No. 10 seed (Rutgers), a No. 11 seed (Syracuse), and finally a No. 12 seed (Oregon State).
This marked the first time in history that a team had reached the Final Four without facing a single-digit seed.