The Loyalists: Alex Karaban and Will Tschetter, Rare One-School Seniors, Face Off in UConn-Michigan Title Clash

It wasn’t long ago that men’s college basketball fans would crack jokes about the four- or five-year players who seemed like they never left the sport. Duke’s Greg Paulus, Pitt’s Levance Fields and Brandin Knight, Ohio State’s Aaron Craft, Kansas’s Perry Ellis. Fans of virtually any school had those rival players who seemed to haunt their programs, making four years feel like a full decade.

With extra years of eligibility granted by COVID-19, some college athletics careers are longer than ever. However, the single-school senior is on the verge of extinction. Small-school superstars tend to jump up to the Power 5 after the first signs of success—and the promise of lucrative NIL dollars. Role players at a top Big Ten or SEC program have less patience. The transfer portal contains thousands of names each time it opens, leaving college basketball rosters virtually unrecognizable from one year to the next.

The two teams vying for Monday night’s national championship, No. 1 seed Michigan and No. 2 UConn, are no strangers to the allure of the transfer portal. The Huskies’ star center Tarris Reed Jr. began his career with the Wolverines, while two of Dan Hurley’s rotational guards, Silas Demary Jr. (Georgia) and Malachi Smith (Dayton) are in their first seasons at UConn.

Michigan’s roster is even more transfer heavy, led by former Arizona Western and UAB standout Yaxel Lendeborg. Along with Elliot Cadeau (North Carolina), Morez Johnson Jr. (Illinois), Aday Mara (UCLA), Roddy Gayle Jr. (Ohio State) and Nimari Burnett (Texas Tech, Alabama), six of the Wolverines’ seven leaders in minutes per game are transfers. The exception, Trey McKenney, is a freshman.

While fans likely knew it conceptually, a March 3 post to X by Isaac Trotter of 247 Sports laid out just how transitory the sport has become. Per Trotter, of the 79 programs that make up the Power 5 conferences, just 22 players stayed at one school for their entire four-year (or five-year) career, the traditional freshman to senior progression.

The numbers aren’t radically different when you switch from the Power 5 ranks to the 68-team field of the 2026 men’s NCAA tournament. Sports Illustrated reviewed the full rosters of all 68 programs in March Madness, and found just 26 seniors who have been with the same program for their entire four- or five-year college careers. The list does not include veteran players who have been out for the full season with injuries, those away from the program for off-court reasons or walk-ons who do not play as part of a program’s regular rotation.

Just five of the 68 teams in the mix have multiple seniors who have been at that school for their entire careers. For better or worse, the veteran players who used to largely define March Madness are now obscurities in the Big Dance.

While most NCAA tournament teams didn’t have a single player who fit the bill, both UConn and Michigan are represented by one. On the Huskies’ side, a two-time national champion set to become the first player outside of John Wooden’s UCLA dynasty to play in his third title game: forward Alex Karaban. For the Wolverines, veteran forward Will Tschetter is a true role player, and he wouldn’t have any other way.

Michigan’s Will Tschetter knows the grass isn’t always greener

Tschetter made his pledge to Michigan basketball back in June 2020. Nearly six years later, his commitment to the program hasn’t wavered, even as the coaching staff, the roster around him and his role with the program has evolved drastically.

He played the first three of his college seasons for Juwan Howard, a legendary member of the program’s famed “Fab Five” as a player, who was fired as coach after the program bottomed out to 8–24 in 2023–24. A season like that, and the consequent coaching change, would be enough to make most players consider a transfer these days, putting Tschetter in true rarified air as a one-school senior in March Madness this year.

Entering the tournament, he has just 15 career starts under his belt, eight of which came in his freshman season in 2022–23. Tschetter plays just under 14 minutes per season, down from his sophomore and junior seasons and putting him at ninth on this season’s roster. His NCAA tournament minutes put him just below his season average, and he has 10 total points through the first five games of the Big Dance. But he has no regrets, and now his Wolverines are on the doorstep of a national championship.

Michigan forward Will Tschetter stuck with the Wolverines for his entire four-year career even when his role changed. | Grace Hollars/IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

“Obviously, there’s opportunities to go elsewhere,” Tschetter told Michigan blog Maize n Brew in March. “I just felt like my situation at the end of the day couldn’t get any better than it was here. Yeah, I could have gone and shot the ball more times a game or had the ball in my hands, but I don’t think quality of life-wise and happiness-wise, I would have found something like I did here.

“From the connections that I [made] off the court, friends that I’ve made, coaching staff-wise, it just didn’t make sense to leave, and I feel like the university had given me a lot of great things up until this point. So I just kind of like returning the favor, and staying true and loyal to Michigan and the Block M was something that I definitely thought a lot about and made the most sense.”

Tschetter redshirted in 2021–22, when the Wolverines made a run to the Sweet 16. His role increased under Howard for his first two years on the court, but Michigan missed the ’23 and ’24 tournaments. Last season, he averaged 14 minutes in March Madness as the Wolverines made a run to the Sweet 16, eventually falling to Auburn.

The decision to come back for one more year, even as his minutes have dwindled and more opportunity for shots and NIL bucks lingered away from Ann Arbor, remains an easy one for Tschetter, with this year’s run making it all worthwhile.

“Giving up some of those minutes so that our team can ultimately just [be] super successful,” Tschetter said after Michigan’s Round 1 win against Howard, per MLive. “Just knowing that those wins are worth it in the end.”

UConn’s senior leader Alex Karaban seeks to join college hoops’ most exclusive list

UConn’s back-to-back national titles in 2023 and ’24 made the Huskies the first program since Florida (’06, ’07) to take home consecutive championships. Another title for Hurley’s program, which is a No. 2 seed in this year’s tournament, would make UConn the first program to win three titles in four years since Wooden’s UCLA dynasty.

And Karaban has been a key part of Hurley’s program since that first national championship. This year, he was one of just five high-major players to start for four years for the same school, and once again, he finds himself on the precipice of a title.

His decision in past offseasons hasn’t been whether to transfer—for a New England native who has built a résumé as one of the great winners in recent college basketball history, why would he? However, Karaban did enter his name in last year’s NBA draft, before withdrawing and opting for one more ride in Storrs, Conn. The chance to chase the kind of history that has been reserved for the legendary Kareem Abdul-Jabbar—three career national championships—was plenty of reason to make that call.

UConn’s Alex Karaban is one win from being the first non-UCLA player to win three titles in four years. | Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated

“Just chase history, continue to win national championships, wanting to win more and really just try to play under Coach Hurley for as long as possible,” Karaban said after that decision, per the Boston Herald. “Realizing how great of an opportunity I had and really just wanting to maximize my entire career at UConn. And really just do something that you don’t really see in college basketball anymore, which is stay at a program for four years without transferring and really cement yourself in a program.”

On Sunday, after UConn’s win against Illinois clinched a spot in his third national championship game, Karaban confirmed that he never considered leaving for another college program, and he doesn’t regret turning down the chance to jump early to the pros.

“I’ve never considered the portal. I think, you win and start on two national championship teams your freshman and sophomore year, it’s going to be tough going into that office, being like, Coach, I want to leave. So, no I’ve never considered the portal, it was more if I wanted to go to the NBA or not. And those were the tough decisions I needed to make. … But at the end of the day I wanted to see how my college career would play out and not leave and what-ifs or question marks if I were to leave. And I have no regrets with any decision that I’ve made. And I’m glad it’s worked out the way it was supposed to work out.”

You certainly don’t see it much any more, making Karaban’s career all the more remarkable. And as his Huskies try to make history on Monday, his path—one that would not have been so unique just a few years ago—is one worth celebrating.

The one-school seniors of the 2026 men’s NCAA tournament

Team	Player
Akron	Tavari Johnson
Akron	Amani Lyles
BYU	Richie Saunders
Clemson	Dillon Hunter
Furman	Ben Vander Wal
Hawai’i	Harry Rouhliadeff
Houston	Emanuel Sharp
Houston	Ramon Walker Jr.
Howard	Bryce Harris
Howard	Ose Okojie
Iowa State	Tamin Lipsey
Lehigh	Henri Adiassa
Michigan	Will Tschetter
Michigan State	Carson Cooper
Michigan State	Jaxson Kohler
Nebraska	Sam Hoiberg
North Carolina	Seth Trimble
Northern Iowa	Trey Campbell
Ohio State	Bruce Thornton
Penn	Cam Thrower
Purdue	Trey Kaufman-Renn
Purdue	Fletcher Loyer
Purdue	Braden Smith
Saint Mary’s	Harry Wessels
Santa Clara	Brenton Knapper
UConn	Alex Karaban

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