The most dazzling tournament runs (by players who didn’t win it all)

Steph Curry was a pyrotechnic scorer for Davidson throughout the 2007-08 season. He’d already set the NCAA-single season record for 3-point field goals, but 15 years ago, the benchmark wasn’t commemorated like it would be today.

Curry’s shooting allowed Davidson to close a 17-point deficit against Georgetown, a program that played in the Final Four a year earlier, and advance to the Sweet 16. Curry put 30 on Wisconsin, the nation’s stingiest defense.

Curry remained in prime form for Davidson’s matchup against No. 1 Kansas, racking up 25 points. But he made only 4-of-16 3s and missed an open teammate on the final possession who had a clear path to the basket. In four games, Curry was so phenomenal that he became the first player to win the Most Outstanding Player of his region in a losing effort.

Like everything he did throughout his HOF career, David Robinson’s 1986 tournament is one of the most underrated tournament runs in the history of March Madness. His 23 blocked shots in four games are more than any player has ever collected in five or fewer games and were only a portion of his NCAA single-season record 207 blocks.

Syracuse’s 1987 team is memorialized for coming within a missed free throw and Keith Smart jumper away from clinching Jim Boheim’s national title. The 1986 team may have been better. They entered the tournament as a No. 2 seed, led by Pearl Washington, Sherman Douglas, and Rony Seikaly. That is until Robinson dropped 35 on their domes, buttressed by 21-of-27 shooting from the charity stripe. He was a black hole defensively where he spaghettified seven shots.

Robinson posted a near triple-double against Cleveland State by putting up 22 points, 10 boards and swatting nine more shots. In the Elite Eight, Navy was overpowered by Coach K’s first Final Four team. Robinson’s 23 points, two blocks, and 10 rebounds in a loss to Duke weren’t the end of his college career though. To supplement his status as a March Madness legend, he returned the next season to drop 50 on Michigan in the first round.

2009 Blake Griffin was a different beast. When he wasn’t grazing his head on backboards, he split defenses and detonated atom bombs above the rim. Griffin missed only one field goal in a rout of Morgan State in which he produced 28 points and 13 boards. He capped off the weekend with 33 and 17 against Michigan. Griffin’s 30 and 14 left Syracuse flummoxed as Oklahoma moved on to the Sweet 16. In his tournament exit, Griffin shot 9-for-12, scored 21 points, and collected 16 boards, which was more than UNC’s entire starting lineup. He also helped hold Basketball Tebow, Tyler Hansbrough, to eight points and six boards. Griffin averaged 28.5 points on 55 percent shooting and 15 boards during Oklahoma’s four-game stretch.

Dwyane Wade’s Final Four run was a prelude to the next decade of pro basketball. Wade had a pair of ho-hum games during the first weekend, making fewer than 40 percent of his field goals against Missouri and Holy Cross. He made up for that inefficiency by draining all 13 free throws.

The Tournament’s second week is where Wade’s lore was born. Wade scored 20 second-half points in Marquette’s three-point win over Pitt. To top it off, Wade then took command against No. 1 Kentucky, winners of 26 straight, and flashed his aptitude for rising to big moments. His 29-11-11 triple-double, the fourth in tournament history, was matched by four blocks on the other end. Reality finally hit like a hard screen in the Final Four when Kansas walloped Marquette by 33. Ultimately, Wade’s draft stock catapulted from that tournament, and nearly 20 years later, he was named a top 75 player in league history.

It’s funny to look back at the 2013 NCAA Tournament and remember that Trey Burke struggled in his 2013 March Madness debut against South Dakota State. Burke shot 2-for-12 from the field and 0-for-5 on 3-pointers for a total of six points and seven assists. Slow starts were a theme for Burke. It’s how you finish that matters, and Burke was an ice in his veins scorer throughout that tournament. Following a scoreless first half, he filleted No. 1 Kansas by scoring 23 points in the second half and overtime. Burke’s 30-footer to force overtime was one of the coldest shots in tournament annals. Unfortunately, his other clutch tournament play in the national championship game was erased by an errant call. After a turnover, Burke sprinted down the court and cleanly blocked Peyton Silva at the rim in the waning minutes of the national championship game. The officials whistled Burke for a foul and sucked the air out of Michigan. Burke tallied 24 points despite foul trouble limiting him to six points in the first half in a losing effort.

Marcus Camby’s three years at UMass were a tumultuous mix of on-court success and off-court controversies, culminating in a Final Four season that the NCAA record books vacated. Camby was a central component of Calipari’s 31-1 squad entering the tournament. In total, Camby blocked 21 shots in four games. Defense isn’t sexy, but it’s how UMass won 35 games. The Minutemen finished the season outside the top 100 teams in scoring and 10th in defense. Camby had 20 points and seven blocks against Stanford in the second round, then racked up 15 points and three blocks in 18 minutes of a win over Arkansas.

Camby was instrumental in deflating Iverson and the No. 2 seeded Georgetown Hoyas in the Elite Eight. Camby blocked three shots scored 22 points, intimidating Iverson into shooting 6-for-21 from the field. In UMass’ loss to Kentucky in the Final Four, Camby was still a force blocking six shots and dialing up 25 points.

Bo Kimble’s shining moment was marred by the death of teammate Hank Gathers. Loyola Marymount’s second-leading scorer tragically passed away after collapsing during the West Coast Conference Tournament. In response, Kimble put the emotional and physical burden on his shoulders. In honor of Gathers, Kimble shot the first free throw of every game with his left hand.

Despite beginning the tourney as an 11-seed, Kimble was dynamite. Loyola Marymount’s breakneck pace skews their offense’s numbers; however, winning against Mexico State, Michigan and Alabama forced the nation to do a double-take at Paul Westhead’s program. No player in the 3-point era has a higher single tournament average than Kimble’s 35.8 points. Kimble’s only ordinary performance was his 17 points against Alabama during a 62-60 win. In Loyola Marymount’s losing effort against the eventual national champion UNLV, Kimble still scored 43 points, although Loyola surrendered 131 points.

South Carolina was unfamiliar with men’s basketball tournament success before 2017. Losing six of their final nine games before the NCAA Tournament set them up as a lowly No. 7 seed. But for two weeks, Thornwell became an offensive assassin. In every facet, Thornwell was magnificent. South Carolina’s 6-foot-5 swingman drained mid-range jumpers, scored in the post, made rainbow triples, stepback jumpers, and finished in transition.

In the opening round, Thornwell scored 29 points, three steals, and 11 rebounds against Marquette for the program’s first NCAA Tournament win in 44 years. His 24 points and five assists vaulted the Gamecocks past a Duke squad headlined by Jayson Tatum and Grayson Allen and into the Sweet 16. Thornwell’s 50 combined points against Baylor and Florida gave them victories over their region’s second, third, and fourth seeds. Gonzaga would hold Thornwell to 15 points in the Final Four. Thornwell still wound up as the NCAA Tournament’s leading scorer, averaging 25.8 points per game.

Even statistical analysis and flowery words don’t describe how microwave scorer Carsen Edwards went supernova during the 2019 NCAA Tournament. Edwards’ 34.8 points per game average is the second-highest tournament scoring average of the 3-point era. His 28 made threes are still the most ever for a player in one tournament. That’s one fewer than Glen Rice during the 1989 Tourney but in two fewer games. Edwards also made 45 percent of his triples, a large majority of them being high degree of difficulty shots off the dribble. In the process, he became the first player named Most Outstanding Player of his regional, from a team who didn’t reach the Final Four since Steph Curry.

Edwards opened the tournament with 26 against Old Dominion. But that was just a preview. In Purdue’s victory over Villanova, Edwards tallied 42 points. In the Sweet 16, Edwards outdueled Tennessee in overtime by dropping 29. Finally, in the Elite Eight against Virginia, he delivered the performance of a lifetime. Against the nation’s most suffocating defense, Edwards poured in 42 points, drilling 10-of-19 3-pointers. Edwards single-handedly kept the Boilermakers alive by making the impossible look quotidian. With 1:09 remaining in regulation, Carsen dribbled behind his back twice, wiggled free just long enough to rise and bank a 3-pointer to regain the lead for Purdue. That should have been enough, but Edwards gave Purdue the lead again on a floater from the lane in the final 45 seconds. The magic finally ran out with Purdue trailing by three after Ryan Cline fumbled Edwards’ pass out of bounds on Purdue’s final possession.

The 2016 NCAA Tournament was Buddy Hield’s moment. Unlike Steph Curry’s, Hield’s run was anticipated. Buddy Buckets was the Naismith National Player of the Year, Wooden Award winner, and a projected first-round pick the year prior. His 147 3-point field goals made were 15 from Curry’s single-season record. He was the best pure shooter the tournament had seen since Steph Curry or Glen Rice. Oklahoma’s supporting cast provided Hield with a wider margin for error than Curry’s Davidson, but Hield didn’t need it. All he needed was enough space to release his shot. Hield’s 36 points on 6-of-14 shooting behind the arc powered Oklahoma past VCU in the Round of 32. Then, in the Elite Eight, he did it again, making eight 3s en route to 37 points and a win over Oregon to advance Oklahoma into the Final Four.

Villanova cooled off Hield considerably in the Final Four, but his journey there spoke for itself.

Until the final two minutes of the national title game, Rose was the maestro of an absurd freshman campaign. Once the tournament tipped off, he continued moving at a different speed. Besides a close finish against Mississippi State in the 2nd round, Memphis won every game leading up to the national championship by at least 15 points. In Memphis’ six tournament games, Rose averaged 20.8 points, mainly on a diet of acrobatic shots in the paint and pull-up J’s. He also dished 5.3 assists.

Rose wasn’t doing it all in Memphis though. The attention Rose commanded allowed teammate Chris Douglas-Roberts to chip in a team-high 23.3 points per game in March. The only reason Rose isn’t higher on this list is because his missed free throws were directly responsible for Kansas’ miraculous comeback from a nine-point deficit in the final two minutes of a title game they should have won.

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