Could the 2023 men's NCAA Tournament championship game be a battle of South Florida?
This year's historically low-seeded Final Four features two teams from the state of Florida: No. 5 Miami and No. 9 Florida Atlantic.
FAU has turned into the Cinderella team of a tournament filled with upsets. The Owls entered 2023 March Madness with an 0-1 all-time tournament record but have ripped off four wins, including ones over No. 3 Kansas State and No. 4 Tennessee, to put themselves on the doorsteps of becoming the first No. 9 to seed to ever win the Big Dance.
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The Hurricanes, meanwhile, rebounded from a 2022 Elite Eight loss to eventual champion Kansas by storming back against No. 2 Texas in this year's Elite Eight. The comeback win booked Miami's first trip to the Final Four in program history.
FAU and Miami are the first schools from the same state to make their Final Four debuts in the same year since La Salle and Penn State in 1954, according to ESPN Stats & Info.
The two South Florida schools won't face each other in the Final Four at NRG Stadium in Houston. Miami is up against No. 4 UConn, while FAU drew a fellow Final Four first-timer in No. 5 San Diego State.
But should the Hurricanes and Owls both emerge, it would produce a historic championship showdown.
Have two teams from the same state ever played in NCAA Tournament championship game?
Two schools from the same state have indeed played for the NCAA Tournament championship before. However, it's been over six decades since it happened.
The 1961 tournament featured the first intrastate title game between Ohio State and Cincinnati. The Bearcats outlasted the Buckeyes in overtime.
Believe it or not, the same two Ohio programs then met again in the following year's championship game, where Cincinnati defeated Ohio State for a second straight time.
Those two Cincinnati-Ohio State matchups are the only intrastate title games in tournament history. So an already wild tournament could get even crazier with an all-Florida final.
