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Four for Four Duke, Maryland latest to play four-game series
Updated: Tuesday March 27, 2001 7:37 PM
By Jacob Luft, CNNSI.com If familiarity breeds contempt, then how will Duke and Maryland feel about each other after they play for the fourth time this season Saturday? The odds are heavily against two teams playing each other three times in a season and then meeting in the NCAA tournament, but it has happened on eight occasions since 1985, including twice last year. If recent history is any indication, the fourth meeting is a rerun -- the past three times, the team with the edge in the first three games won the final matchup in the NCAA tournament as well (see chart, below). Three teams -- 1987 Providence, '88 Kansas, and '86 LSU -- were down in the season series before winning in the NCAA tournament. The 1986 LSU Tigers had lost all three of its previous games to Kentucky before winning 59-57 in the regional final. Maryland has lost two of three games this season to Duke. On the other side of the bracket, Arizona and Michigan State have met a total of four times in their history.
There were two four-game series last year -- Wisconsin-Purdue and Wisconsin-Michigan State. After beating the Boilermakers two out of three times in the regular season, the Badgers defeated them again in the Elite Eight. Then they met their own nemesis in the Final Four -- the Spartans -- and lost to them for the fourth time that season. Duke-Maryland is the sixth Final Four matchup of teams from the same conference and the second involving the ACC. The Big Ten and Big East each have two as well.
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