The 2024 NCAA men's tournament came to a close on Monday night, with the UConn Huskies capping off a dominant run with a 75-60 victory over the Purdue Boilermakers to become the first team since the 2006-07
Florida Gators to repeat as national champions. From No. 13 seed Oakland upsetting No. 3 seed Kentucky behind 10 three-pointers from Jack Gohlke to a chalky Sweet 16 that ended in a Goliath vs. Goliath battle for the national championship, it was another memorable March Madness. Now it's time to slap a bow on this year's festivities with our biggest takeaways from the 2024 men's NCAA tournament, from the First Four games on March 19 and 20 through the national championship game on Monday night. Thanks for reading along with us! Terrence Shannon Jr. was one of the nation's most prolific scorers and is a likely lottery pick in the upcoming NBA draft, but his sidekick Marcus Domask had a terrific season in his own right, and he was the one who made history in the 2024 NCAA tournament. After four seasons at Southern Illinois, Domask joined the Fighting Illini last offseason via the transfer portal. The 6'6" guard ended up earning first-team All-Big Ten honors, averaging 15.9 points, 5.0 rebounds and 3.9 assists. While Shannon (26 points) and center Dain Dainja (21 points) led the way offensively in an 85-69 route of No. 14 seed Morehead State in the opening round, Domask joined a short list of players who have logged a triple-double in the NCAA tournament with a 12-point, 11-rebound, 10-assist game. Here's a rundown of the exclusive club: Marcus Domask has recorded the 10th official triple double in NCAA tournament history, joining Gary Grant, Shaquille O'Neal, David Cain, Andre Miller, Dwyane Wade, Cole Aldrich, Draymond Green (twice) and Ja Morant. Domask finished with 12 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists. The Fighting Illini's tournament run was halted by the UConn juggernaut in the Elite Eight, but not before Domask etched his name in the record books. After a wild 2023 NCAA tournament that saw zero No. 1, 2 or 3 seeds reach the Final Four for the first time in history, this year's bracket was extremely chalky. The Sweet 16 featured 14 teams slotted on the top five seed lines, with No. 6 Clemson and No. 11 NC State as the only exceptions, and while there were some surprises in the Elite Eight, it still ended up being the top two teams in the nation squaring off in the national championship game. That said, just because there was a lot of chalk in the later rounds of the tournament doesn't mean the opening weekend didn't provide us with plenty of memorable upsets. Here's a quick look back at all the teams seeded No. 11 or lower that came away with a victory on Thursday and Friday to kick off this year's festivities. The NC State Wolfpack will be the underdog everyone remembers from this tournament field, but there was no shortage of shockers in those first two days of action. Asked who the breakout star of the 2024 NCAA tournament was going to be, experts likely would have rattled off dozens and dozens of players without Jack Gohlke's name being uttered once. That's the beauty of March Madness. It can literally be anyone who breaks through to make a name for himself on the national stage. After five years at D-II Hillsdale College, he joined the Oakland Golden Grizzlies during the offseason as a grad transfer, and while he spent much of the year coming off the bench, he did finish second on the team with 13.1 points per game thanks almost exclusively to his three-point prowess. The 6'3" guard took 372 shots during the 2023-24 season and 364 of them were three-pointers, of which he connected on 137 to lead the nation in made threes while
shooting at a solid 37.6 percent clip. He had 12 games on the year in which he hit at least five threes, but he saved his best performance of the season for the opening round of the NCAA tournament when he helped lead the Golden Grizzlies to a shocking upset of No. 3 seed Kentucky with 32 points on a staggering 10-of-20 from beyond the arc. He added six more threes and 22 points against NC State in a losing effort in the second round, but by that time he had already cemented his status as the breakout star of the 2024 tournament. The Gonzaga Bulldogs helped create the blueprint of what we think of when we hear the term Cinderella during March Madness. Generally speaking, it's a team from a mid-major conference, and often one that the vast majority of the population could not point to on a map. Earlier this month in one of our winners and losers articles, I noted that there were no Cinderella stories left in the tournament field heading into the Sweet 16 since the only double-digit seed left was the NC State Wolfpack. That was a mistake. Just because they came from a major conference doesn't make what the Wolfpack accomplished in this year's tournament any less unlikely, and they proved definitively that Cinderella stories can come out of major conference chaos. The Wolfpack were in the NCAA tournament only because they won five games in five days in the ACC tournament to secure the conference's automatic bid, and while that momentum was enough for more than a few people to pick them to upset
Texas Tech in the opening round, their Final Four run was as unlikely as any in recent memory. In the weeks leading up to Selection Sunday, entire "bubble watch" articles could have been dedicated to the Big East with as many as five teams residing somewhere close to the projected cut line. In the end, they all wound up on the outside looking in, as UConn, Marquette and Creighton were the only Big East teams to make the tournament field. Seton Hall, Villanova, Providence, Butler and Xavier all settled for a spot in the NIT, while St. John's and head coach Rick Pitino declined an invite after they were arguably the biggest snubs from the NCAA tournament field. Instead, the selection committee gave a record six bids to the Mountain West and then watched as one lost in the First Four, three more lost in the first round, and another fell in the second round, leaving only San Diego State left standing heading into the Sweet 16. Meanwhile, all three Big East teams in the field survived the opening week, and the cherry on top was Seton Hall winning the NIT with a 79-77 victory over Indiana State. Ask any college
basketball expert as the 2023-24 season was unfolding what the best conference in the nation top-to-bottom was this year, and the Big 12 would have been a near-unanimous answer. They ended up with eight teams in the NCAA tournament field, including one of the favorites to win it all in the Houston Cougars and a stout defensive squad in the Iowa State Cyclones that won the conference tournament to secure a No. 2 seed. Here's a full rundown of the Big 12's seeding: Texas Tech, BYU and TCU lost their first game, while Kansas was taken to the wire by No. 13 seed Samford and survived on one of the more controversial calls of the opening weekend. Baylor, Kansas and Texas fell in the second round, while Houston needed overtime to beat Texas A&M in one of the wilder games of the weekend. By the time the dust settled on the Sweet 16, the conference had been erased from the field entirely, with Houston falling to Duke after Big 12 Player of the Year Jamal Shead missed the entire second half with an ankle injury and Iowa State unable to silence Illinois' high-powered offense. A disappointing end to what had been a terrific season for the Big 12. There is little question Zach Edey is one of the most dominant college basketball players of all-time, and he has back-to-back National Player of the Year awards to further pad that narrative. However, his NBA upside has been tough to nail down throughout his dominant run at Purdue. In the 1980s and 1990s when the NBA revolved around the post game, Edey would likely have been a slam dunk No. 1 overall pick, but in today's perimeter-oriented game where teams look for athleticism and versatility in their bigs his fit is unclear. It will take a team willing to build a specific role for him on the roster, but his performance during this year's NCAA tournament has made it clear that he has a future at the highest level. With a 37-point, 10-rebound performance in 39 minutes of action on Monday night, he wrapped up his 2024 tournament run with eye-popping averages of 29.5 points and 14.5 points per game. B/R's NBA draft expert Jonathan Wasserman had Edey slotted at No. 26 in his most recent mock draft , and with his size, ability to finish, rim protection skills and a level of stamina that allowed him to average more than 31 minutes per game the last two years, he is going to make an impact in the NBA. The NCAA tournament is sometimes about who gets hot at the right time, and there is an argument to be made some years that the best team in the country was not the one left standing on the court as the confetti rained down. This was not one of those years. The 2023-24 UConn Huskies became the first team since the 2006-07 Florida Gators to repeat as national champions, but they did it in a very different way. The Gators returned their entire starting lineup and top player off the bench to go back-to-back, but this Huskies team lost leading scorers Adama Sanogo and Jordan Hawkins along with dynamic guard Andre Jackson to the NBA and didn't miss a beat. Donovan Clingan and Tristen Newton both stepped into large roles, freshman Stephon Castle made an instant impact and Cam Spencer was the perfect transfer portal pickup to round out the roster. The end result was a team that entered the NCAA tournament seemingly in a tier of its own and backed it up by once again steamrolling the field, finishing with a +140 point differential in their six wins to set a tournament record. Tip of the cap to head coach Dan Hurley for pulling all the right strings from the start of the offseason last year through the national championship game on Monday night. With Clingan, Newton, Castle, Spencer and Alex Karaban all potentially moving on to the NBA this offseason, it's going to be a busy offseason of roster turnover, but it would be unwise to count them out for another title run in 2025.