INDIANAPOLIS – This entire NCAA tournament has doubled as a time warp. The games end, and the digital pages flip back to find distant precedents and snapshots of bygone eras.
With seemingly every team that advances, there’s a corresponding stroll through the past. The final DeLorean spin came at historic Hinkle Fieldhouse when No. 2 Houston smothered Syracuse with a rugged man-to-man defense in a 62-46 win.
That marked Houston’s first trip to the Elite Eight since 1984, with Kelvin Sampson’s team reviving the ghosts of Phi Slama Jama. “How many years is that?” Sampson said, before learning it was 37 years.