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David J. Phillip/Associated Press

For most coaches, the path to the first Final Four isn't an easy one. Mike Krzyzewski has been to 12 Final Fours, but it wasn't until his 11th season that he made his first trip. And if we exclude the two at Massachusetts and Memphis that were later vacated, John Calipari didn't reach the national semifinals until his 19th season as a college head coach.

And this year, there are three first-time head coaches who waited a long time to get here.

The story of Frank Martin's career has been told so many times by so many outlets over the past two weeks that you probably have it committed to memory. He got his start as a JV head coach because the previous one simply didn't show up one day. Once he got his foot in the door, he just kept winning at every stop in his career. Martin took Kansas State to the Elite Eight a few years ago and now has South Carolina in the Final Four in his 10th year as a D-I head coach.

Gonzaga's Mark Few had a much more linear journey. He became the head coach of the Zags when Dan Monson led them to the 1999 Elite Eight and promptly left to take the job at Minnesota. After 18 years of having people say that he (a) should leave Gonzaga for a better job and (b) will never make a Final Four, Few proved you don't need to leave Spokane to become a contender.

But you have to add together the careers of Martin and Few to match the number of years before Oregon's Dana Altman reached the Final Four. Altman spent one year at Marshall, four years at Kansas State, a lifetime at Creighton and is now in his seventh year at Oregon. All told, it took 28 years and 597 wins for him to get to college basketball's Promised Land.

It's not just the coaches, either. Both Gonzaga and South Carolina are making their first ever appearances in the Final Four, and this is Oregon's first trip since winning the first NCAA tournament in 1939.