March Madness: 1 fun fact about each First Four team in the 2026 NCAA Tournament

The “mini-madness” of the First Four kicks off in Dayton Tuesday night time with a matchup of 16-seeds Howard and UMBC adopted by 11-seeds NC State and Texas getting it on. One night time later we’ll watch Prairie View A&M face Lehigh earlier than Miami University seems to be to maintain its dream season alive by taking down SMU.

Here’s one fun fact you need to know about all eight of the groups that might be getting the 2026 males’s NCAA Tournament underway.

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Howard

Kenny Blakeney received a nationwide championship at Duke in 1992, and instantly jumped into the teaching world following his commencement in 1995. He spent almost 25 years as an assistant at James Madison, Delaware, Seton Hall, Marshall, Harvard and Columbia, earlier than somebody lastly gave him a head teaching alternative in 2019.

That faculty was Howard, and Bison AD Kery Davis is wanting awfully sensible for doing so.

Blakeney has now led Howard to the NCAA Tournament in three of the final 4 seasons. Not unhealthy for a program that solely been to the Big Dance twice earlier than (1981 and 1992). The Bison, who final to Wagner in the First Four two years in the past, might be enjoying for his or her first March Madness victory once they tackle UMBC Tuesday night time.

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UMBC

The Retrievers are again in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2018, once they grew to become the first 16-seed ever to upset a 1-seed in the first spherical recreation. UMBC’s head coach in that recreation, Ryan Odom, is now in his first season as the head coach at Virginia, the team the Retrievers shocked in that recreation.

Since that fact is pretty widespread information, let’s serve up one other one: UMBC is getting into the NCAA Tournament on a 12-game profitable streak. That’s the second-longest lively profitable streak in the nation, trailing solely High Point’s streak of 14 straight wins.

NC State

The Wolfpack are the solely team on the discipline that has 4 gamers who common at the least 4 three-point makes an attempt per recreation and are taking pictures the three at a 40.0 p.c or higher clip. Leading the method for Will Wade’s outdoors assault is Paul McNeil Jr., who’s simply the fourth participant in program historical past to make 100 or extra triples in a season, and is now simply 4 threes away from setting the program’s single-season file.

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NC State is 14-3 this season if it shoots 37.5 p.c or higher from three, however simply 6-10 when it shoots below 37.5 p.c from past the arc.

Texas

The Longhorns are the solely team in the event with a high 10 offense, however a defensive effectivity rating that falls outdoors the sport’s high 100. Texas has misplaced 5 of its final six video games, and has allowed a median of 88.8 factors per gave over these 5 defeats.

Miami University

Did you already know the Redhawks (*1*)turning into simply the sixth team in school basketball’s expanded event was to take action!? Ok, you in all probability did. So let’s go together with one thing else.

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An enormous a part of the motive for Miami’s success this season lies with the fact that they’re the ultra-rare trendy mid-major who was capable of retain most of their high expertise from one season to the subsequent. The Redhawks returned the sixth-most minutes (62%) of any team in school basketball for this season, a fact which a lot of the gamers attributed to how final season ended.

Miami made all of it the method to the MAC championship recreation final season, main Akron by as many as 18 factors earlier than dropping their shot at the NCAA Tournament on a last-second game-winner by the Zips.

“I know we’d just gone through probably the worst thing a team could go through basically, but we still felt the connectivity with us,” stated Peter Suder, Miami’s main scorer this season. “I thought I was the first one to talk to [head coach Travis Steele] Within a week and I told him within 10 seconds of our meeting that I don’t want to leave, I want to come back. And then I told him to tell all of the players in their meetings.”

Another instance of how usually who you retain issues greater than who you convey in today.

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SMU

We’re going with a not basketball associated, however nonetheless attention-grabbing fact right here.

SMU was solely based due to a battle between the United Methodist Church and one other faculty with a team in this yr’s NCAA Tournament: Vanderbilt University.

For the first 40 years of its existence, Vanderbilt was below the route of the United Methodist Church. The Vanderbilt Board of Trust severed its ties with the church in June 1914 over a dispute with the bishops centering round who would appoint college trustees. The church then turned to Dallas to make SMU its new flagship establishment.

The two groups, each undefeated at the time, truly squared off again in December, with Vanderbilt pulling off an 88-69 win in Nashville.

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lehigh

The Mountain Hawks almost did not win a recreation in their very own convention event. Now they’ve an opportunity to win a recreation in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since CJ McCollum and firm shocked Duke in 2012.

Here’s how Lehigh outlasted Holy Cross in the Patriot League quarterfinals two weeks in the past: