Smolar
As far as big upsets go, the 2025 men’s March Madness tournament has been incredibly boring in a historically chalky set of games. That said, the last three games of the college basketball season promise to be some of the best we’ve seen in years as all four No. 1 seeds made it to the Final Four for just the second time in tournament history and for the first time since 2008.
In one semifinal matchup we have an all-SEC matchup between Florida and Auburn while the other side has a Duke-Houston meeting. Just four potential matchups remain for the national championship game in San Antonio on Monday night. Here’s my personal ranking of the hypothetical games as someone with no emotional connection to any of the teams left:
1. Duke vs Florida
This matchup would have star power all over the place, led of course by Cooper Flagg and Walter Clayton Jr. From a perspective of how the teams have done in the tournament, Duke has made easy work of just about everyone in their path even when Flagg hasn’t been the A+ version of himself like against Alabama. The Gators meanwhile have been battle tested against both UConn and Texas Tech on their way to the Final Four and can get hot at any moment to change the course of a game. Historically, Duke would be looking for their sixth national title (first since 2015) to tie them with UNC and UConn for third all-time while Florida would be searching for their third championship and first since they repeated in 2006 and 2007; ironically Florida was the team to ruin UConn’s bid for a three-peat in the second round. These two teams are the best left in the tournament and would make for an incredible national title game if they both take care of business on Saturday night.
2. Duke vs Auburn
If the SEC matchup goes the other way, this matchup would still be a very good game as the Tigers have one of the premier players in the country on their side in Johni Broome and were the top overall seed entering the tournament. Duke’s size against the very good Auburn defense led by Denver Jones, Broome and Dylan Cardwell would make for a fascinating game within the game matchup. Auburn has also played against all three of the other Final Four teams and would feel very comfortable going against the best Duke team in years. Should the Tigers make it to the championship game, it would be a first in their program’s history and would make for a historically fascinating aspect of chasing their first ever title against one of the premier blue blood schools.
3. Florida vs Houston
Should Houston pull off an upset over Duke, we would see a cool local aspect of Kelvin Sampson, who was born in Laurinburg and went to UNCP, going for a national title, which would be the first for the Cougars in their history. Matchup wise, seeing Emanuel Sharp, LJ Cryer and Milos Uzan lock horns on defense with Walter Clayton Jr. would be an interesting side matchup. Florida as discussed could get hot at any moment as we saw against Texas Tech, but Houston typically doesn’t give anything to opponents easily and has an incredible winning culture. It may not be a matchup that jumps off the page, but it would still be a great way to end the tournament.
4. Auburn vs Houston
Two teams going head-to-head for their first national championship deserves to be higher than No. 4 on the list but that’s the reality of how stacked the Final Four is this year. Make no mistake about it, we’d still be front and center for this matchup, but it doesn’t have quite the appeal of the other options. You could argue that the strength of both of these teams is their defense, which would appeal to the old school basketball fan but maybe seem boring to the newer generation. These teams met back in early November, which resulted in a 74-69 Auburn victory. Both squads are experienced tournament teams but don’t yet have a national title to show for it. This game would give one of them the national championship they’ve been elusively searching for.
Final thoughts: depending on your fandom or preferences for what makes a great national championship, you could justify putting any of these games at any spot on the list. That’s how razor thin the margins are between these teams and how great the final three games should be. Enjoy the Final Four on Saturday night and the championship game on Monday night, we should be in for quite a treat.