I was watching Dale Brown’s 1985-86 LSU Tigers team play on television recently and learned something new – and incredible – about that team.

I knew when I started watching them that it was a Final Four team that season. They were one of the first “Cinderella” Final Four teams, advancing as an 11-seed to the Final Four in Dallas. They lost to eventual national champion Louisville in the semifinals.

While we have had our own quarantining because of the coronavirus during recent months, that LSU team had their own quarantine. A chicken pox outbreak had the team quarantined for a week in late January, causing games to be rescheduled.

The Tigers ended up playing four games in five days in early February. The first two of those games were losses and ended up being the end of a six-loss-in-eight-games stretch.

However, Brown got the Tigers going on February 4th and 5th, winning back-to-back nights at Auburn and Mississippi State. In March, LSU defeated a one-seed (Kentucky), two-seed (Georgia Tech), and three-seed (Memphis State) on their way to the Final Four. Really, an incredible job by Dale Brown.

The Tigers almost repeated the feat the following year as a 10-seed. They lost a second-half lead and fell on a last-second shot to Indiana in the regional finals in Cincinnati.