Villanova and Virginia will face off this Saturday in a rarely seen game between back-to-back regular-season major conference champions.
The Cavaliers (8-1) are ranked No. 1 on KenPom.com, and the Wildcats (8-1) aren't far behind at No. 4. The AP Top 25 voters aren't quite as high on Virginia and Villanova, but they will enter the game ranked No. 8 and No. 12, respectively.
In winning consecutive ACC and Big East regular-season titles, they compiled a combined record of 122-19. It would be difficult and foolish to argue that these aren't two of the five or six most successful programs in the country over the last two-plus seasons.
It's a potential Final Four preview that deserves to be hyped up nearly as much as the Champions Classic pairings, but it seems inevitable more people will tune in for Utah vs. Duke and North Carolina vs. UCLA than Villanova vs. Virginia on Saturday afternoon.
It's a crying shame, but such is life for the two most underappreciated college basketball teams in the nation.
Without question, the primary reason no one seems interested in talking about these two teams in December is because recent history would suggest they can't be trusted in March.
This game should have been something of a rubber match between squads who waged war for a spot in back-to-back Final Fours, as Villanova and Virginia occupied the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds in the East Region in each of the past two NCAA tournaments.
Arizona and Wisconsin were in a similar boat, earning the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds in the West Region in each of the past two years, but those two teams held serve to deliver a pair of excellent regional final showdowns. In the East, though, Villanova and Virginia combined for one Sweet 16 appearance and no trips to the Elite Eight.
"That is where the lack of national respect comes from, and we can't argue with that," Villanova head coach Jay Wright told Bleacher Report this week. "That's just how you're evaluated in this business. There have been years when we didn't have as good a regular season, but we advanced further in the tournament and probably got more respect than we deserved. But we get that, and we accept that."
Looking back, the early exits are rather understandable.
Virginia ran into Michigan State before the Final Four in both years, which might as well be a death sentence, given the success that Tom Izzo's teams have had in the tournament. It didn't help the Cavaliers that Justin Anderson wasn't at 100 percent for last year's pairing with the Spartans in the round of 32.
"When it comes to March, it's about playing your best," Virginia head coach Tony Bennett told Bleacher Report. "Some of that has to do with health. Some of that has to do with matchups. But, ultimately, it's about peaking and playing at a high level at that time, and I think last year, we weren't playing at our highest."
Meanwhile, Villanova had the misfortune of drawing eventual national champion Connecticut in the 2014 round of 32, and the Wildcats simply couldn't buy a bucket in last year's early game against North Carolina State.
It happens. But, good luck trying to argue that these teams actually mean business this year with anyone whose bracket was busted by those upsets. As someone who picked Virginia to reach the 2014 Final Four and Villanova as the 2015 national champion, I appreciate the "Boy Who Cried Wolf" fear of buying stock in either of these teams.
Even for those who had the good fortune of not getting burned by one or both of these teams in the tournament, though, much of the difficulty in selling this as a must-watch game is the complete lack of household names or future stars; however, based on the KenPom.com Player of the Year rankings, three guys will play at John Paul Jones Arena who absolutely should be household names.
College basketball junkies know and love Virginia's Malcolm Brogdon and Anthony Gill and Villanova's Josh Hart, but not a single player from either roster appears on the DraftExpress 2016 NBA mock draft.
Even though we're entrenched in an era where most of the top programs are annually sending guys to the NBA before they're old enough to consume alcohol legally, neither Villanova nor Virginia has had a freshman or sophomore declare for the draft in the past four years. Both coaches got a good chuckle out of saying they would gladly take one-and-done guys such as Jahlil Okafor or Karl-Anthony Towns, but it's unlikely they'll ever be able to nab them.
"If you know you're going to go for one year, going to a really demanding academic school is probably not the best place to do it," said Wright. "We recruited a lot of those guys, but we don't get them in the end."
But isn't that exactly what makes these teams so compelling?
The Cavaliers and Wildcats don't get the best players in the world, but more often than not, they've been beating the teams that do. You'll almost never find Villanova or Virginia in the top 25 of the team recruiting rankings, and yet, both teams have climbed to No. 8 or higher in the AP Top 25 for three straight seasons.
"Our formula has been to get good players, maybe some hidden gems who really develop," said Bennett. "They get experience, they develop, so that when they become upperclassmen, they really come into their own."
By consistently targeting malleable recruits who are in it for the long haul, Villanova and Virginia seem to have a never-ending pipeline of seniors who are willing and able to lead their team to another season of 30 or more wins. The 5-star freshmen who are destined for a spot in the NBA draft lottery are sexier, but getting to watch guys mature and develop over the course of a four- or five-year career is one of college basketball's most endearing facets.
So do yourself a favor and carve out two hours Saturday for the Wildcats and the Cavaliers. Find out how Villanova's three-point barrage fares against Virginia's pack-line defense, and vice versa. Watch stars such as Brogdon and Hart. Get a glimpse of guys such as Devon Hall and Mikal Bridges, who will be filling those shoes two or three years from now.
Just try not to hold the last two NCAA tournaments against them.
Third time's the charm, right?
Kerry Miller covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @kerrancejames.