March Madness: Intrastate Rivalries

New Mexico vs. New Mexico State for the national championship? That’s a long shot given the rest of the field in the NCAA men’s college basketball tournament. However, the intriguing possibility made me wonder whether any intrastate college rivalry, like the Lobos and the Aggies, will be settled during “March Madness.”

Given the importance of college hoops in almost every state, it’s not uncommon for both the university and the state university from the same state to be in the tournament. This year six sets of such schools were invited to the Big Dance: North Carolina and North Carolina State, Michigan and Michigan State, Kansas and Kansas State, Florida and Florida State, Colorado and Colorado State, and the two New Mexico schools. Except for the North Carolina schools, each pair has been seeded in different brackets, setting up the possibility of a showdown on college basketball’s biggest stage.

Of course there are other kinds of intrastate rivalries in college hoops. For example, Duke and North Carolina. But a contest between a “university” and a “state university” is almost always good for an all-out war. It’s that way in my state when Washington plays Washington State in the Apple Cup. The winning team gets statewide bragging rights, which extend to the students, faculty, fans, and, perhaps most importantly, alums.

So imagine the hoopla if your state’s biggest college rivalry is going to be decided by a game late in the tournament. It won’t happen for my state’s schools this year, although it could happen for the six states I mentioned.

But let’s not get too carried away thinking about a fantasy matchup. There are 68 teams in the 2012 NCAA men’s basketball tournament. All of them are good teams. Any school could win it all, although that’s not the way to bet or fill out a bracket. Despite the upsets that always occur, generally the powerhouse teams—the ones that are seeded among the highest in the four brackets—advance to the Final Four.

That means the two Michigan schools (a 1 seed and a 4 seed) or Florida schools (a 3 and a 7) have the best chance of playing each other in a Final Four game or for the national championship. The other four pairs of schools have at least one 8 seed or lower. North Carolina (a 1 seed) could meet North Carolina State (an 11 seed) in the Midwest finals, although Kansas (a 2 seed) and several other good teams in their bracket will have something to say about that.

There’s also history to consider. The NCAA men’s basketball tournament has been around since 1939. So far no pair of university/state university schools has ever met in a Final Four game. Not once in 73 tournaments. In fact, two schools from the same state have only met twice in the championship game. That was in 1961 and 1962 when Cincinnati played Ohio State. Cincinnati won both years.

But hey, it’s March Madness time. Maybe things will be different this year.