Over the years, we’ve seen some great runs during March Madness and some highly talented teams. But the most talented teams don’t always take it all the way to a national championship. Many have fallen short, and some didn’t even make it to the Final Four. Here we rank some of the best teams in NCAA history that failed to take home a National title, starting when the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985.
This team had just one NBA player, but he just happened to be the AP, Wooden, and Naismith Player of the Year in 1996 in Marcus Camby. Camby and head coach John Calipari led the Minutemen to the Final Four that year. A superior Kentucky team knocked UMass out with Antoine Walker, Tony Delk, Derek Anderson, Walter McCarty, and Ron Mercer leading the way. In total, the Wildcats had nine future NBA players on the team. UMass just couldn’t match up but still had an impressive season, making it as far as it did.
This Kansas Jayhawks team came into the ’97 tournament with just one loss and was expected to be playing in the Final Four. Head coach Roy Williams had a plethora of NBA talent on his roster, with Paul Pierce developing into the best of the bunch, but he didn’t even lead this team in scoring. That was Raef LaFrentz (18.5 ppg). Let’s not forget Scot Pollard and Jacque Vaughn, who also went on to play in The Association.
Overall, coach Williams had six players that moved onto the NBA, but the Jayhawks weren’t enough to beat a hot Arizona Wildcats team in the Sweet 16 that year led by Miles Simon and Mike Bibby. If you’re going to lose in the tournament, there’s no shame in saying you lost to the eventual National Champion.
John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Eric Bledsoe, Patrick Patterson. Those are just a few of the names on this Kentucky Wildcats team that fell short of their ultimate goal of winning a national title for head coach John Calipari.
Calipari had a total of eight players on this roster that would go on to play in the NBA, yet they couldn’t get out of the Elite 8 round of the NCAA tournament, coming up short against West Virginia, 73-66.
This Duke team was full of future NBA talent led by the trio of Jason “Jay” Williams, Carlos Boozer, and Mike Dunleavy, Jr. They were also the defending national champs, and many thought that gave it the inside track to winning back-to-back titles. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case for Coach K and his Blue Devils in ’02, as they didn’t even make it past the Sweet 16 falling to Indiana, 74-73.
The Fab 5 were expected to bounce back in 1992-93 after losing to Duke in the national title game the year prior, and came about as close as you can without actually bringing home the championship. Instead, the Wolverines lost to Donald Williams and the UNC Tar Heels in the infamous Chris Webber “timeout” national title game, in which Michigan went on to lose 77-71.
While Michigan’s run was magical, they couldn’t seal the deal and are largely remembered for the style they introduced into the collegiate game but also for squandering two opportunities at making history in the NCAA Tournament.
The Fighting Illini didn’t lose a game until their final regular-season match-up against Ohio State that year, and then proceeded to run through the Big Ten tournament and their first three NCAA tournament games, setting up an Elite 8 date with Arizona.
This is still one of the best finishes in tournament history as Illinois came back from 15 down with four minutes remaining in regulation to win by one point in overtime, 90-89. Deron Williams, Luther Head, and Dee Brown did a number on the Wildcats which catapulted the Illini into the Final Four and then National Championship game. But their glorious run came to an end against a more talented North Carolina team in the title game, 75-70.
A team with four McDonald’s All-Americans, headlined by Antawn Jamison (National Player of the Year), Vince Carter, and Ed Cota, feels like they should have gone home with the national championship. But that certainly wasn’t the case. This version of the Tar Heels breezed through the tournament in 1998 only to be eliminated in the national semi-final by Utah with Michael Doleac and Andre Miller leading the way.
This Kentucky team may have been at the peak of Calipari’s one-and-done run as it included nine guys that wound up on NBA rosters. Names like Karl-Anthony Towns, Devin Booker, Trey Lyles, Aaron Harrison, and Willie Cauley-Stein, just to name a few. This fully loaded team lost one game all year and that came in the national semi-final in big upset fashion to Frank Kaminsky, Sam Dekker and the upstart Wisconsin Badgers, 71-64.
Head coach John Thompson and Patrick Ewing led Beasts of the East Georgetown to its second straight national title game in 1985 and seemed assured of back-to-back championships heading into their game against underdog Villanova.
In one of the biggest upsets in NCAA tournament history, the Rollie Massimino’s Wildcats of Villanova played a near-perfect game, shooting 78.6 percent from the field, shocked the Hoyas 66-64.
This Duke team was stacked, and the fact that it didn’t win it all in ’99 still boggles the mind. Elton Brand, Corey Maggette, Trajan Langdon, Shane Battier, and William Avery. All five of these players would end up making an NBA salary. This year, the Blue Devils were so loaded that Maggette came off the bench as sixth-man.
So much talent, and it got them all the way to the National Championship game where underdog the UConn Huskies, led by Richard Hamilton and Khalid El-Amin, bested the Blue Devils 77-74. Coach K and Duke really let one slip away here with all that future NBA talent on one roster.
This pick is pretty much consensus among those who were around to remember the Runnin’ Rebels of the early ’90s. Larry Johnson, Greg Anthony, and Stacy Augmon were the collegiate version of a Big 3 long before the term was actually a thing. Led by head coach Jerry Tarkanian, UNLV ran through everyone during the 1990-91 campaign to a second consecutive National Championship game appearance. The Rebels racked up a 45-game win streak along the way, which included a national title victory the previous year.
Where UNLV had blown out Duke the year before in the title game, 103-73, this time Duke came better prepared and squeaked out a 79-77 victory for the school’s and Coach K’s first National Championship.