The 2022 Men's NCAA basketball tournament Final Four tips off Saturday with exciting matchups between four of the nation's best teams.
Kansas, Villanova, Duke and North Carolina have won seven of the last 13 National Championships combined. Here's everything you need to know.
It's the next chapter in a historic rivalry
The most scintillating of tonight's games is expected to be the one between the North Carolina Tar Heels and the Duke Blue Devils, which starts at 8:49 p.m. ET.
The two teams have played each other 257 times throughout their history but have never faced-off in the NCAA tournament.
The Blue Devils famed coach Mike Krzyzewski will hope to avoid a repeat of the last meeting between the two teams when the Tar Heels emerged triumphant in Coach K's final home game at Cameron Indoor Stadium last month.
Krzyzewski, who is the winningest coach in Division I men's basketball history, announced that he would retire at the end of the season.
![Head coach Mike Krzyzewski of the Duke Blue Devils looks on during practice before the Final Four tournament at Caesars Superdome on Friday.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/67410bf/2147483647/strip/true/crop/4444x3333+0+0/resize/880x660!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.npr.org%2Fassets%2Fimg%2F2022%2F04%2F02%2Fgettyimages-1389011349-0c90d87656bae10787dd361b7d26d8cdea67198c.jpg)
This is the 13th time Krzyzewski has taken Duke to the Final Four, passing John Wooden for the most Final Four appearances in NCAA history. Krzyzewski has also won five national championships for the school during his 42 seasons as head coach and will hope to finish his career on a high, joining an exclusive group of coaches who've ended their career with a championship.
On the opposite end of the court will be North Carolina's Hubert Davis, who led his team to a Final Four in his first season, the first head coach to do so since UNC head coach Bill Guthridge in 1998. Including Guthridge, only nine other coaches have taken their teams to the Final Four in their first season.
The Tar Heels ended the historic Cinderella run of Saint Peter's University last Sunday and will hope to also stop Duke tonight in pursuit of the school's seventh national championship.
Can the lone No. 1 seed advance?
Today's early game tips off at 6:09 p.m. ET and features a rematch from the 2018 Final Four which saw Villanova easily handle Kansas on its way to the school's third national championship.
![Mitch Lightfoot of the Kansas Jayhawks celebrates a three-point basket by Ochai Agbaji against the Miami Hurricanes during the Elite Eight round game at United Center on March 27, in Chicago.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/ce4a84c/2147483647/strip/true/crop/4969x3301+0+0/resize/880x585!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.npr.org%2Fassets%2Fimg%2F2022%2F04%2F02%2Fgettyimages-1388040737_custom-466af7a4d6687d676f7d75b51a7f7b9e58c5b50d.jpg)
Kansas, which remains the tournament's remaining No. 1 seed, will hope to avoid a repeat of that 2018 loss and return to the national championship for the first time since 2012. Kansas last won a national championship in 2008.
Villanova will be without its second-leading scorer Justin Moore, who tore his Achilles tendon in the regional final win over Houston last week. Not only was Moore a team leader in scoring he has also been one of the team's best defenders.
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