Throwback Thursday: The 1980 NCAA Tournament

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In the 2016-17 season premiere of Throwback Thursday, we look back at a major checkpoint year in the NCAA Basketball Tournament. The field consisted of 48 teams and was the second year in which teams would be formally seeded in each region. Most notably, this was the first season in which the restriction on the number of teams from a conference would be lifted.

For the ACC, this meant that North Carolina, Maryland, Duke, NC State and Clemson could all appear in the NCAA Tournament. For the Pac-10, Oregon State, Arizona State, Washington State and UCLA were invited. For the Big 10, Indiana, Ohio State, Iowa and Purdue were invited.

The East regional started harmlessly enough – the top 3 seeds of Syracuse, Maryland and Georgetown advanced to the Sweet 16 along with Iowa. Georgetown beat Maryland in a match of DC foes (just up the road in the Spectrum in Philadelphia), but Lute Olson’s Iowa team crashed the party with upset wins against Syracuse and Georgetown to clinch a bid to the Final Four in Indianapolis.

The Mideast regional started with Penn trying to pull a repeat Cinderella run – the Quakers were the 12th and final seed in the region but managed to upset Washington State in the first round. Duke would end Penn’s run with a 52-42 win in the 2nd round and would also stun top-seeded Kentucky 55-54 in the Sweet 16 at Rupp Arena in a revenge game from 2 years earlier in the 1978 national championship. Purdue (like Iowa earlier) took full advantage of their at-large status in the NCAA Tournament that would not have been available the year before. They beat La Salle and St. John’s to set up a matchup with Indiana in the Sweet 16. Purdue would also avenge their NIT championship loss to Indiana from the year before and beat Indiana 76-69. Purdue then defeated Duke to advance to the Final 4. After Duke’s loss, head coach Bill Foster moved on to South Carolina and opened the door for a young head coach at Army to become Duke’s next head coach. That coach, you ask? Mike Krzyzewski.

In the Midwest regional, this was as about as close as you could get to chalk holding up throughout the regional. Top-seeded LSU was able to advance to the Elite 8 with wins over Alcorn State and Missouri. Texas A&M was able to upset North Carolina in a double-OT game in the 2nd round, but would end up losing to Louisville in overtime in the Sweet 16. Even though Louisville and the Doctors of Dunk played in what amounted to a road game in Houston’s Summit against A&M, they had little trouble in knocking out LSU to earn the 3rd ticket to the Final Four.

The real Island of Misfit Seeds was in the West region. The top 3 seeds (DePaul, Oregon State, BYU) would all lose their opening games in the 2nd round despite 1st-round byes. UCLA upset DePaul in a rematch of the prior year’s West regional final and would beat Ohio State to advance to the Elite 8. Clemson beat Utah State and BYU in the first 2 rounds of the NCAA Tournament and beat the Cinderella team of Lamar in the Sweet 16. Lamar (coached by Billy Tubbs) was the 10th seed and scored upset wins over Weber State and Oregon State before bowing out to Clemson. UCLA would beat Clemson 85-74 to earn the 4th and final ticket to Indianapolis.

Despite being in the heart of Big 10 country, neither Iowa nor Purdue were able to win in their respective semifinal games. Purdue would defeat Iowa 75-58 in the 3rd place game, however. As for the other two teams, Louisville would edge out Iowa in the semifinal game and ended up defeating Larry Brown’s UCLA team in the national championship by a 59-54 score. Ultimately, if you go in the official history books at NCAA headquarters, you’ll also see “VACATED” because of NCAA violations against UCLA.

As for the 1980 Final Four, click here to see the official NCAA video.

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