It’s been a half-decade since a men’s college basketball team from the Commonwealth last reached the men’s Final Four, when Tony Bennett’s UVA Cavaliers team stunned the nation by clinching the program’s first title across Virginia sports betting. This year, the closest Virginia will get to a Final Four team is the ACC’s NC State Wolfpack, who knocked off the Cavaliers in this year’s ACC Tournament on their improbable march towards the 68-team bracket.
That ACC connection appears to be a strong one, with NC State holding a commanding lead when it comes to rooting interest in Virginia this year, as the Wolfpack scored much higher than the other three Final Four teams (UConn, Purdue and Alabama) on social media.
We used Google Trends Search Interest Scores to compare Virginians’ search volume for each of the four remaining teams in NCAA Men’s March Madness. These results were tracked on a scale of 1-100 and from the start of March Madness (March 18) through April 1.
Virginians Rooting Interest in Final Four
| Rank | Team | Google Trends Search Volume Score |
| 1 | NC State Wolfpack | 39 |
| 2 | UConn Huskies | 14 |
| 3 | Purdue Boilermakers | 13 |
| 4 | Alabama Crimson Tide | 7 |
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It seems like the draw of having Leesburg native Kevin Keatts in the Final Four is enough for Virginians, with NC State holding a commanding lead over the other three teams in Saturday’s national semifinals, in terms of Google Trends search volume scores.
NC State currently holds a score of 39, which is nearly triple the next closest team (UConn at 14), while Purdue (13) and Alabama (7) are well behind Keatts’ bunch out of Raleigh.
Come Saturday, Keatts and the Wolfpack are listed as a 9.5-point underdog on FanDuel Sportsbook Virginia against the top seeded Boilermakers. NC State has the longest national championship odds of any team, at +2000.
Nonetheless, it seems like the draw of having a Virginia-born head coach and a single VA-born player (freshman guard Dennis Parker Jr. of Richmond) is enough for citizens of the Old Dominion — as NC State is the people’s champion in the state as we grind our way towards Saturday’s Final Four in the Phoenix suburbs.
