No Texas squad has made the Final Four when San Antonio is the host city. Will that change in 2025?
SAN ANTONIO — Spring has sprung, which means Fiesta isn’t too far away for San Antonio. But the city is getting an early taste of the party atmosphere with the return of the Final Four, which takes over the Alamodome in the first weekend of April.
This is the first Final Four hosted by the Alamo City since 2021, and the first men’s Final Four here since Villanova defeated Michigan in 2018. Come April 4, March Madness fever will fully take over downtown—making San Antonio the most sought-after destination in sports over the coming weeks.
Four Texas squads – Baylor, Houston, Texas A&M and Texas Tech – are dreaming of that short road trip and game action at the 36,000-seat Alamodome. But they’ll need to overcome the history working against them: No team from the Lone Star State has ever made the men’s Final Four when hosted by San Antonio.
The last time a Texas team made the Final Four at all was 2021, when the Baylor Bears won it all over Gonzaga.
Will the streak be broken this year? We’ll be tracking each team’s progress as they vie to punch their ticket to the Alamodome.
Sorry in advance, Longhorns fans.
No. 1 seed Houston (Midwest Region)
- Round of 64: Houston 78, SIU Edwardsville 40
- Round of 32: Houston vs. No. 8 seed Gonzaga, 7:40 p.m. Saturday (TNT)
Milos Uzan scored 16 points, LJ Cryer added 15 and No. 1 seed Houston was able to rest up for the rest of the NCAA Tournament while romping past No. 16 seed SIU Edwardsville 78-40 on Thursday in the first round of the Midwest Region.
Ja’Vier Francis added 13 points and eight rebounds for Houston (31-4), which now gets a tough second-round matchup with No. 8 seed Gonzaga on Saturday. The Bulldogs blitzed ninth-seeded Georgia, 89-68, in their tournament opener.
“I thought our defense and our rebounding, two of the things we really emphasize, was good today,” Houston coach Kelvin Sampson said. “Shot selection was really good to start the game — knocked some shots down, got off to a good start.”
The Cougars finished well, too. The final margin was the biggest of the game.
Ray’Sean Taylor had 10 points for SIUE (22-12), which was just 2 of 24 from the 3-point arc in its first NCAA appearance.
Up next for Houston: A Final Four-style showdown with Gonzaga, echoing 2021 when both teams were in the Final Four together.
No. 3 seed Texas Tech (West Region)
- Round of 64: Texas Tech 82, North Carolina Wilmington 72
- Round of 32: Texas Tech vs. No. 11 seed Drake, 5:10 p.m. Saturday (TNT)
Kerwin Walton scored a career-high 27 points and No. 3 seed Texas Tech attempted an NCAA Tournament-record 46 3-pointers in an 82-72 victory over No. 14 seed UNC Wilmington on Thursday night.
The Red Raiders raced to a 16-point lead, lost most of it by going cold in the final 6 1/2 minutes of the first half and then made enough plays down the stretch to recover after the Seahawks went ahead with about 14 minutes remaining.
Texas Tech (26-8) finished 13 for 46 behind the arc, breaking the tournament record of 43 attempts by Saint Joseph’s in a 1997 second-round game against Boston College. The 46 3s also set a school record.
“I felt like our grit and fight really showed late in the game,” Texas Tech coach Grant McCasland said. “We felt like we’d have to win on the glass and play 50-50 basketball in order to give us a chance to win.”
Next for Tech is a date with unlikely second-round opponent Drake, which beat Missouri 67-57 in a first-round upset.
No. 4 seed Texas A&M (South)
- Round of 64: Texas A&M 80, No. 13 seed Yale 71
- Round of 32: Texas A&M vs. No. 5 seed Michigan, 4:15 p.m. Saturday (CBS)
No need to overthink this one. Texas A&M was never in danger of letting the Ivy Leaguers from Yale pull another March Madness upset.
The Aggies sent Yale back to class Thursday with an 80-71 victory behind a career-high 25 points along with 10 rebounds from big man Pharrel Payne.
Fourth-seeded A&M (23-10) came into the NCAA Tournament on a lot of “upset watch” lists, thanks mainly to going against a Yale team some thought might be even better than the one that pulled off a first-round shocker last year against Auburn.
But an upper-division team from the best conference in the country, the Southeastern, proved too much for the Yalies.
“We played pretty well in the first half,” said A&M guard Wade Taylor IV, who finished with 16 points. “We still had a couple things we could have cleaned up, which we tried to do in the second half. Ultimately, we played to the game plan, and I think we executed it pretty well.”
A tougher test awaits Saturday against Michigan, which narrowly avoided an upset of its own after staving off 12 seed UC San Diego, 68-65, in the first round.
No. 9 seed Baylor (East Region)
- Round of 64: Baylor 75, No. 8 seed Mississippi State 72
- Round of 32: Baylor vs. No. 1 seed Duke, 1:40 p.m. Sunday (CBS)
NBA lottery prospect V.J. Edgecombe had just four points at halftime of Baylor’s first-round NCAA Tournament game against Mississippi State.
That didn’t concern Bears coach Scott Drew.
The athletic Edgecombe responded with a big second half and finished with 16 points, including two clutch free throws down the stretch, to help the ninth-seeded Bears hold off the eighth-seeded Bulldogs 75-72 on Friday.
“Because he’s so highly rated on the draft boards, people just assume that he’s going to score,” Drew said. “V.J. doesn’t have to score to impact a game. He is an all-around player. He gets comparisons to Dwyane Wade, Russell Westbrook, and the thing that those guys did is their athleticism and their ability to assist, defend. It affects the game. So if he’s scoring or not, he’s helping us.”
Edgecombe also had five rebounds, a block and a steal in his first NCAA Tournament game.
Robert Wright scored 19 points, Langston Love added 15 and Norchad Omier had a strong game inside with 12 points and nine rebounds for the Bears (20-14), who led by 11 points in the second half but had to hold off the Bulldogs in the final seconds — and even tenths of seconds.
Baylor advanced to face Duke, the top seed in the East Region, in the second round on Sunday.