There’s a Kansas Jayhawks connection (two, actually) for Florida Atlantic at Final Four

Final Four weekend often brings a cast of college basketball’s greatest brands. Kansas won last year’s title among a group that also included North Carolina, Duke and Villanova.

Rarely is a Final Four contested without multiple versions of the game’s nobility.

When a program arrives at the biggest stage and talks about team bonding on bus trips and assistant coaches sharing an office, it can feel like breath of fresh air. Florida Atlantic, which plays in a tiny gym that seats just 2,900, fits that description.

The ninth-seeded Owls will meet San Diego State in front of 70,000 or so at Houston’s NRG Stadium on Saturday in the national semifinals. This makes Florida Atlantic the most unlikely Final Four qualifier since ...

Coach Dusty May prefers the Loyola comparison. The Ramblers of Sister Jean and Overland Park leaders Clayton Custer and Ben Richardson rolled to the 2018 Final Four. That team is easily recalled because it won that season at Florida, where May was an assistant coach.

They’re similar in a couple of ways. Florida Atlantic’s Conference USA this season, and Loyola’s Missouri Valley Conference in 2018, were strong leagues that rated just outside the power conferences. So there was a basis for the two teams’ NCAA Tournament success.

Also, both beat Kansas State in a regional final.

Here’s how they’re different. Loyola has a basketball history, including an NCAA championship. The list of great moments in Florida Atlantic’s Division I basketball history, which started in 1993, thus far begins and ends with this season.

“This is an opportunity for those outside the national spotlight to be on the big stage and show what they can do,” May said.

Before Loyola, programs like VCU, George Mason and Penn could be considered the most unlikely to reach the Final Four since bracket seeding started in 1979.

That George Mason team of 2006 was coached by Jim Larranaga, who has returned to the Final Four, this time with Miami. Florida Atlantic, located in nearby Boca Raton, Fla., is the first program since George Mason to reach a Final Four without previously winning an NCAA Tournament game.

“FAU’s run, yes, is very similar to George Mason’s because nobody anticipated it,” Larranaga said.