This year's NCAA Tournament has been chock-full of unexpected upsets and delivered on high-stakes drama and tension. But the cream often rises to the top, and the Final Four has one of the best collections of blue-blood schools in history. With perennial powers Kansas, Duke, Villanova, and North Carolina still alive, it's the very first Final Four that features teams with multiple titles.
But there's a key distinction between these four programs: only one of them is led by a first-year coach. Hubert Davis succeeded legend Roy Williams this season at North Carolina, and in spite of a topsy-turvy campaign, he became the first men's coach since Bill Guthridge (1998) to reach the Final Four in his first year. The Tar Heels have transitioned from bubble team to title contender in a month, and longtime college coach Frank Martin has advice for Davis.
"Be consistent with who you were every single day of this season. There's so many distractions, as you're going into this game," Martin told the Reiter Than You show on Friday. "From attention, people on social media, phone calls, all sorts of stuff. To your players, they're being pulled in different directions, and their lives are going around in circles. You have to make sure you keep them in the space and place that's allowed them to get to this moment.
"You can't change. You can't be nicer, because then they're just complacent to be there. But you can't be meaner, because then they're like, 'Why is this guy freaked out? We've gotten here.' You've got to be consistent with who you are. And then the most important word: trust. The reason you're in this moment is because you trust your players. Don't allow that to change."
North Carolina, which won 23 regular season games, crushed 15th-seed and tournament darling Saint Peter's in the Elite Eight last weekend. They scored twice as many points in the first half (38-19), owned a commanding 27-point lead midway through the second, and held the Cinderella hopeful to only 18 buckets. Armando Bacot scored a team-high 20 points with 22 rebounds.
For the first time in history, North Carolina and Duke will meet each other in the NCAA Tournament, and the winner of Saturday's game (8:49 ET tip-off) will advance to the championship and earn forever-lasting bragging rights. According to FiveThirtyEight projections, North Carolina currently has a 38-percent chance to beat its archrival for the second time this season.
The entire college basketball conversation between Martin and Reiter can be accessed in the audio player above.
You can follow the Reiter Than You show on Twitter @sportsreiter and @CBSSportsRadio, and Tom Hanslin @TomHanslin