Finding March Madness’ greatest non-champion

When a college basketball team caps March Madness with a crown, we remember them forever. The images are indelible. Kris Jenkins rising up to break North Carolina’s hearts in 2016. Michael Jordan’s game-winning bucket over Patrick Ewing’s Georgetown Hoyas in 1982. Jim Valvano furiously searching for someone to embrace the next year. And on and on.

But some of the very, very best college basketball teams of all time, squads that were seemingly destined for championship glory, happened to stub their toe before notching that sixth tourney win. And while history tends to forget them, in this video we don’t.

In an endeavor to determine the best teams to have ever not cut down the nets after the NCAA Tournament’s title game, we’ll use charts depicting the full-season exploits of every men’s college basketball team from the tourney’s ’85 expansion to 64 teams up thru 2025, as well as the tourney exploits of every team in every tourney since its ’39 inception, and more to see which non-champions emerge as the greatest of them all.