In many ways, the regional finals of the NCAA tournament are comparable to the NFL conference championship games. Just getting to the Final Four is a lot like getting to the Super Bowl.

Except it’s not quite such a bummer if you don’t grab the college basketball championship. Just based on what I’ve heard from players and coaches who’ve been in them, losing in the national semis isn’t nearly so deflating as losing a Super Bowl.

One pain fades and leaves a lasting patina of achievement, especially the rare low- or mid-major who manages to win four or even five games and remain standing from among 362 teams. The other is a wound that lingers and tends to leave a scar.

So, while there’s work to be done for the quartet of survivors flying to Phoenix, there’s also a glow that will endure. Especially for the one club among the four who really isn’t supposed to be there.

And no matter what happens from here on out, you know the North Carolina State Wolfpack will always remember fondly their highly improbable run to the 2024 Final Four. It’s been a classic hot streak at just the right time, at once saving Kevin Keatts’ job and validating a team that needed to win the venerable Atlantic Coast Conference tournament just to make the Dance.

The Pack had no at-large shot. They needed to do what they did — a 5-game run in five days — simply to get an NCAA invitation as an automatic qualifier. It’s eerily similar to the 1983 run of Jim Valvano’s Cardiac Pack to the most unlikely of national titles.

Well, nobody is predicting a Pack title redux in Phoenix, especially with Zach Edey and Purdue in their path on Saturday night (6:09 EDT). But considering the roll they’re on, it might be foolhardy to bet against N.C. State and their lovable dancing bear of a center D.J. Burns at this point.

In case you missed it, Burns, point guard D.J. Horne and three other transfer starters collected by Keatts have caught fire for nine straight postseason contests.

Burns in particular has clicked into another gear in four NCAA games, delighting crowds in Pittsburgh and Dallas with his assortment of spinning drop-steps and pinpoint passes. His nimble feet, soft hands and court vision are uncommon for a post player. Let alone a barrel-bodied 6-9, 300-pounder.

Burns fouled out Duke’s Kyle Filipowski and would’ve done the same to his replacement, Northwestern-transfer sub Ryan Young, except most of the time Young couldn’t stay close enough to foul him. It’s like trying to guard a cement mixer.

My fear is that N.C. State’s ascent to the F4 from a #11-seed will hand more ammo to SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and his cadre of major-conference proponents of NCAA tournament expansion. Which would be both a disingenuous and illogical argument.

That the Wolfpack have made it this far from a 10th-place ACC finish and 17-14 record at regular season’s end doesn’t mean the power conferences need more at-large bids any more than Florida Atlantic’s F4 trip last year or Virginia Commonwealth’s in 2011 or George Mason’s in 2006 indicates little-leagues should have more.

What they all mean is, the bracket size is great just where it is. There’s a route for everyone, whether your team happens to coalesce in March or it’s great all damn year.

The Wolfpack’s hot streak did in fact get them in the Dance — by winning their conference tournament. That avenue is available for all 362 Division 1 members right now. So, it’s not necessary to expand the field.

Further, this 9-game win streak really is simply a testament to what can happen when stars literally align — not heavenly bodies but a team’s best players. Burns, charming in interviews as he is on the court, responded to a question from CBS’ sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson about how exactly this happened. He couldn’t quite describe the alchemy himself:

“It’s just been a total switch in our commitment. Nobody’s being late to things. Nobody’s being a problem on the court. Everybody’s come together. I don’t know what it is, but everybody’s handling it on and off the court well.”

Nobody ever quite knows what this zone is like except someone who’s been through it.

Former Penn State assistant James Johnson knows. After leaving Ed DeChellis’ staff in 2005, he immediately hitched a ride on George Mason’s magic carpet to the 2006 Final Four, driven by head coach Jim Larrañaga. That eventually led to a head coaching shot at Virginia Tech (2012-14) that didn’t work out.

But immediately previous to his current gig as director of high school relations for former Penn State DC Brent Pry’s Virginia Tech football program, he was an assistant for five years on the staff of none other than Kevin Keatts at N.C. State. Johnson left that job two years ago to tend to his late mother in Richmond when she fell seriously ill from complications of diabetes.

Keatts spoke about a possible sabbatical, but Johnson didn’t know at the time how long he’d be gone and didn’t feel it fair to other coaches on the NC State staff. So, the two decided it was best if he made a clean break.

But Johnson remains close to Keatts and all those in the Wolfpack program enjoying exactly the same fairy tale he did 18 years ago at George Mason. Neither was supposed to be on the big stage; both somehow made it there.

Johnson has known Keatts since 1991 when he was a junior forward at Ferrum (VA) College and Keatts was a freshman. Soon after, Keatts replaced Johnson as an assistant at Hargrave Military Academy when Johnson left for his first college job at Old Dominion.

Until the past two weeks, the Pack had not won a single NCAA game in Keatts’ 7-season tenure, making the tournament only twice. So, he was rumored to be on the hot seat at NCSU less than a month ago after the Wolfpack lost 10 of 14 down the stretch of the regular season. Yet, Johnson told me Tuesday that he remained confident his old friend could turn it around:

“One thing I know about Kevin — from playing with him, coaching him, and working for him — is that he’s a very confident guy. He always believes in himself, and he always believes in the people around him.”

Johnson had kept tabs on his old team. He watched most of the losses in that late spiral, eight of them dropped by single-digit margins. And when they finally righted the ship at the ACC tournament in DC and made the NCAAs, he knew the Pack were a dangerous team:

“I knew they could beat anybody in this tournament. Once they got going, I knew. Because I’ve been a part of that type of run.”

Yes, he has. The Mason Miracle of 2006 is arguably the wildest NCAA fairytale of them all, a regular-season champ that lost in the second round of the Colonial Athletic Association tournament to Hofstra, then had to sweat out Selection Sunday. The Patriots were barely admitted to the NCAAs as a #11-seed.

But once in, they buzzed through #6-seed Michigan State, #3-seed North Carolina, #7-seed Wichita State and finally powerful #1-seed Connecticut, the national champion only two years prior.

“When we got in the NCAA tournament, Coach L and everybody, we all felt: We’re going into this to make some noise.”

Unlike automatic qualifier N.C. State this year, the Patriots had to endure various abuse from major-conference proponents, particularly CBS pundit Billy Packer who thought they didn’t belong as an at-large choice.

But a 75-65 first-round upset of the Spartans, stacked with veteran starters Shannon Brown, Maurice Ager, Paul Davis and Drew Neitzel, all of whom had played on MSU’s Final Four team the year prior, quieted them.

The Patriots did it without point guard Tony Skinn who’d been suspended for a game after the CAA tournament. In his place was reserve Gabe Norwood, brother of former PSU football wideout Jordan Norwood, both sons of former PSU football secondary coach Brian Norwood. He played an admirable game and was a valuable sub the entire tournament when Skinn returned to the lineup. Norwood did something else that bonded the team a little more, Johnson said:

“After the game, Gabe wrote on the locker room whiteboard: ‘WELCOME BACK, TONY’.

“You think that would happen in this day and age? The average guy’s thinking: Aw, Tony’s coming back. They’re gonna start him now.

“You know you have a close team when the guy you started in place of the starter writes that on the board. I knew at that point — all right, we’re rollin’ now.”

And any lingering doubts about Mason’s worthiness were soon proven nonsense, especially after a 65-60 win over Tyler Hansbrough and Carolina in the regional semi in GMU’s hometown of Washington. And if skeptics still didn’t believe, they certainly did after the Patriots’ shocking takedown of big, bad East Regional top-seed Connecticut two days later in a wild overtime thriller.

The day before at the between-games news conference, the Huskies on the dais, including stars Rudy Gay and Marcus Williams, were asked if they knew what conference George Mason played in. Gay thought it was the Patriot League. A teammate then had to correct him that they were the Patriots.

Skinn, center Jai Lewis and shooting guard Lamar Butler were in the waiting area watching on TV. None was amused.

The next day was among the most memorable in my 36 years covering the NCAA tournament. It’s probably the best game I ever saw live.

After having a front-row seat to Jim Calhoun’s acrid treatment of Gay and especially point guard Williams during that 86-84 OT rodeo, I appreciated the upbeat and encouraging Larrañaga all the more.

The similarities with N.C. State again are remarkable here. Mason played terrific, tenacious helping defense throughout the tournament just like the Pack. They kept the ball out of the lane and forced contested threes.

And just like the Pack, they had a hub in the middle who was their spiritual leader. Having the run of his life was 6-6, 275-pound Jai Lewis. Playing the part of NCSU’s Burns, the earthbound but dexterous and nimble Lewis gave up height to every center he played, five inches to UConn’s 6-11 Hilton Armstrong, yet thoroughly outplayed them all.

The Patriots got huge shots out of Butler, forward Will Thomas and winger Folarin Campbell in that legendary regional final. And UConn finally cracked at the end of OT.

Incredibly, Mason was in the Final Four.

There, the Patriots were finally derailed in the national semis by Al Horford, Joakim Noah and eventual national champion Florida in Indianapolis. But that end never dimmed what remains as one of the great Cinderella runs in college basketball history.

Eighteen years later, Johnson remembers the three weeks as a triumph of spirit over great talent. He thinks North Carolina State and his buddy Keatts is now carrying not only skills but the same belief those old George Mason Patriots did:

“Now, they’re playing sky-high with all sorts of confidence. And it’s hard to stop a team like that.”

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