KANSAS CITY, Mo. — On Saturday, Auburn Coach Bruce Pearl sat and listened as one after another of his top players acknowledged that neither Kansas nor North Carolina nor Kentucky had recruited them. No, they were not high school all-Americans; in fact, they were barely recruited at all.

“I’m a mutt, too,” Pearl said. Proudly. Defiantly.

On Sunday, those mutts, as their coach affectionately calls them, cut down the nets at the Sprint Center as Midwest Regional champions, sending the Tigers to the Final Four for the first time in program history. Proudly. Defiantly.

After all, it took a sweep of the same teams that had overlooked them: Kansas, North Carolina and, finally, Kentucky in overtime, 77-71.

It was a highflying, bruising 45 minutes between two Southeastern Conference rivals that earned Auburn a trip to Minneapolis to play Virginia in an N.C.A.A. national semifinal.