This 12 months’s males’s basketball Closing 4 is as “chalky” as chalk will get: All 4 No. 1 seeds within the bracket superior from their respective areas.
Even with the expectation that prime seeds have a greater shot at reaching the Closing 4, this 12 months marks simply the second time since NCAA Event seeding started in 1979 that each one 4 No. 1 seeds superior to the ultimate weekend.
The one different 12 months such an prevalence unfolded was in 2008.
Here is what the school basketball and pop-culture panorama appeared just like the final time the Closing 4 was made up totally of prime seeds.
The vacation spot is acquainted …
The 2008 and 2025 Closing Fours share one factor that does not contain the seeding of the groups: the San Antonio setting. San Antonio will host its fifth Closing 4 this weekend.
Faculty basketball followers shall be in luck if the joy of the 2008 event is replicated this 12 months on the Alamodome. The 2008 event was determined through an exciting nationwide championship recreation, with the Kansas Jayhawks topping the Memphis Tigers in additional time. The competition is one among simply two males’s basketball nationwide title video games to be determined by additional time within the twenty first century.
… however the collaborating groups’ fates undecided
The 2025 Closing 4 applications have been all in very totally different spots on the finish of the 2008 season. Houston, which was in Convention USA, made a run to the Faculty Basketball Invitational semifinals. Duke earned a No. 2 seed within the NCAA event however was upset within the spherical of 32 by West Virginia.
Florida, recent off back-to-back nationwide championships within the two years prior, skilled a down 12 months, shedding 5 of its seven regular-season video games en path to an NIT bid. Auburn completed 14-16 on the 12 months, together with an elimination within the first spherical of the SEC event.
Leona Lewis tops the charts
Sitting atop the Billboard Sizzling 100 the week of the 2008 Closing 4 was Leona Lewis’ hit “Bleeding Love,” from her debut studio album “Spirit.”
Becoming a member of Lewis and “Bleeding Love” in Billboard’s prime 10 that week have been plenty of different memorable songs and artists, together with “Love in This Membership” by Usher (that includes Younger Jeezy), “Love Tune” by Sara Bareilles, “Low” by Flo Rida (that includes T-Ache) and “Do not Cease the Music” by Rihanna.
Grand Theft Auto IV flies off cabinets
Weeks after the 2008 Closing 4 wrapped up in San Antonio, Rockstar Video games launched Grand Theft Auto IV.
The sport was properly obtained, after which some. Its launch generated $310 million on the primary day, incomes a Guinness World Report for “Highest Grossing Video Recreation in 24 Hours.” Grand Theft Auto IV held up towards a essential eye as properly, with its design and gameplay garnering rave evaluations.
Elsewhere within the sports activities world, a traditional NBA Finals matchup loomed
Because the 2008 school basketball season wrapped up, its skilled counterpart was simply beginning to gear up for the postseason — and the 2008 NBA Finals delivered a historic conflict.
Two of the league’s most storied franchises — the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics — met to resolve that 12 months’s champion. It marked the eleventh time the 2 groups confronted one another within the Finals. Boston, led by Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Ray Allen, prevailed over Kobe Bryant’s Lakers in six video games.
