It's down to 16 contenders, and the field is crowded with the usual suspects, head coaches who have reputations as extensive as their suits are expensive, guys who know how to get to the Final Four.
Bob Huggins is one of those guys.
Sean Miller doesn't mind.
"This game will come down to what they all do, which team plays the best on Thursday," Miller said Monday afternoon.
Thursday is when Miller's Xavier Musketeers take on Higgins' West Virginia Mountaineers in the Sweet 16.
Huggins still doesn't quite dress the part, but he's one of the brand names in the profession.
Miller, 39, is in his fourth season as an NCAA head coach.
The former Blackhawk High School star and Pitt point guard maintains the postseason experience of the players on both sides will have much more of a say once the ball is tossed up in Phoenix.
West Virginia has been to the Elite Eight, the Sweet 16 and won an NIT in the past three seasons.
Xavier, which reached the Elite Eight in 2003-04, is in the tournament for the third straight season. The Musketeers made the tournament in 2005-06 and reached the second round last spring before losing a heartbreaker to eventual finalist Ohio State.
"That's more meaningful than who the coach is," Miller said. "Coach K (Duke's Mike Krzyzewski), I think, has won more tournament games than any other coach. That didn't necessarily help him in the last game because he was coaching a younger team."
Coach K and his Duke Blue Devils were indeed no match for WVU in the last round for Huggins' suddenly surging gang of Mountaineers.
Miller perceives the challenge confronting him to be more about how well West Virginia defends and rebounds and about the matchup problems created by 6-foot-8, 230-pound forward Joe Alexander than it is Huggins' resume.
Xavier, likewise, is about being exceptionally balanced and unselfish on offense, and about Miller turning Stanley Burrell from a shoot-first freshman into the Atlantic 10 Conference Defensive Player of the Year much more than it is Miller's relative inexperience.
Xavier's chemistry and camaraderie also might be apparent to others viewing the current run Miller is orchestrating from afar.
But if Indiana or some other powerhouse looking for the next rising star in the profession is taking notice, Miller remains as unconcerned about any of that as he is about what a Bob Huggins, Ben Howland or Roy Williams might have up his sleeve.
"It's not about me, it's about our team," Miller said. "This team I'm coaching has won a school-record 29 games. This team is in the Sweet 16 for the third time in school history. My focus is to continue to do what I've done from day one to see if we can be the best we can be. Where that takes us, we're gonna find out. The rest of that stuff is irrelevant."
Even if it makes for a pretty good story.
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