This weekend is a celebration of college basketball in more ways than one. It's not just the Final Four or the Big East's last stand (even though it's both). This year's Final Four is different. It's the 75th anniversary of March Madness. It's truly a celebration of all the great teams and great players and great coaches and great games that have made March Madness what it is.
This Final Four is a perfect example of all those things. You have one of college basketball's marquee programs in Louisville and two great coaches in Rick Pitino and Jim Boeheim. Not to mention the excellence of players like Trey Burke and Peyton Siva or Michigan's second-generation stars Tim Hardaway, Jr. and Glenn Robinson III. Then there's Wichita State. The mid-major bracket buster that the entire nation has fallen in love with. (Fun fact: The only other time Wichita State was in the Final Four, in 1965, Bill Bradley scored a record 58 points against them in the Consolation Game.)
They've all left their mark on this tournament already. But that indelible mark is something else entirely. Some moments, and teams, and players, transcend one specific NCAA Tournament. When you think of March Madness, that's who/what you think of. Jim Valvano running around to court looking for somebody to hug. Michael Jordan's jumper. Keith Smart's shot. Mario Chalmers hitting that three to send the game into overtime. Gordon Hayward missing his at the buzzer. Carmelo's title in his only year at Syracuse.
There were a lot of ways I could've tackled this anniversary in a number of ways. A Top 10/15/whatever of the greatest players in the history of the Final Four would be easy. In fact, it took me about 11 seconds to come up with this Top 5:
1. Kareem
2. Bill Walton
3. Christian Laettner
4. Patrick Ewing
5. Bill Russell
And a greatest coaches list would begin and end with John Wooden, so there's no point in doing that. Same thing with the greatest programs. Just go down the list of National Champions. You've got UCLA, Kentucky, Indiana, North Carolina, Duke, Kansas and everybody else.
Greatest single-season teams are also fun, but UCLA's undefeated teams blow everyone else out of the water. Moments? Too many to choose from. Biggest upset? Too close to call between NC State and Villanova. Instead, I'm going with Greatest Games.
As a means of narrowing it down even further, this list will be limited to National Championship Games. I'm going to narrow it down even further than that, though. This is going to be my list of the Top 10 NCAA Championship Games since the Tournament expanded to 64/65/68 teams in 1985. No North Carolina-Georgetown. No NC State-Houston. No North Carolina vs. Wilt Chamberlain and Kansas in 1957, which many consider the greatest game in college basketball history. No Magic vs. Bird in 1979, the game that put college basketball, and March Madness, on the map. Picking 10 from 1985 on is hard enough. Going all the way back to the beginning and choosing only 10 would be damn near impossible. Anyway, here we go with the Top 10 National Championship Games since 1985...
10. 1993: North Carolina 77, Michigan 71-Michigan's Fab Five was in the Championship Game for the second straight year and the game was close until the final moments, when Chris Webber called a timeout that the Wolverines didn't have, resulting in a technical foul and a national title for the Tar Heels.
9. 1989: Michigan 80, Seton Hall 79 (OT)-Glen Rice had a tour de force in leading Michigan to its only national title. It didn't come easy, though. They didn't clinch it until Rumeal Robinson's free throws in overtime.
8. 2003: Syracuse 81, Kansas 78-Thanks to Carmelo Anthony and Co., Jim Boeheim finally won his first national title. The Orange rolled thru three Big 12 teams en route to the final, where they faced another. With Syracuse leading 81-78 and 0.7 seconds left, Hakim Warrick came out of nowhere to block Kansas' game-tying three-point attempt. Kirk Hinrich then missed a three at the buzzer, ending Roy Williams' career as the Jayhawks' head coach.
7. 1997: Arizona 84, Kentucky 79 (OT)-Arizona's 1997 NCAA Tournament run was one of the most impressive I've ever seen. They beat three No. 1 seeds, including defending champion Kentucky in the final. Arizona didn't make a field goal in overtime, but made 10 free throws, which was enough to prevent the other Wildcats from becoming the first back-to-back champs since Duke in 1991-92. Kentucky, of course, won the title again in 1998, in one of the great three-year runs in NCAA history.
6. 1988: Kansas 83, Oklahoma 79-It seems hard to believe in this day and age, but Danny and the Miracles were a No. 6 seed in the Tournament. Didn't matter. Kansas got hot at the right time and knocked off Big Eight rival Oklahoma in the Championship Game, which was held in Kansas City. No team seeded lower than fourth (Arizona) has won a national title since.
5. 2010: Duke 61, Butler 59-Butler became national darlings during the entire 2010 season, when they became the first true mid-major team to reach the National Championship Game since Larry Bird's Indiana State team in 1979. And the Final Four was held a few blocks away from the Butler campus in Indianapolis. (It also helped that a vast majority of Americans have an unfounded hatred of Duke.) Brian Zoubek made a free throw to put Duke up two with 3.6 seconds left, and Mike Krzyzewski told him to miss the second intentionally. The plan almost backfired, as Gordon Hayward's attempted buzzer beater from half court hit the backboard, then the rim.
4. 1999: Connecticut 77, Duke 74-UConn's first national title came in the most unexpected fashion. They finally made it to the Final Four after so many years of coming thisclose. But Duke was far-and-away the best team in the country and came into the Championship Game on a 32-game winning streak. Somebody evidently forgot to tell the Huskies that the Blue Devils were supposed to blow them out. It was a classic game that cemented the Huskies' place as a legitimate national power.
3. 2008: Kansas 75, Memphis 68 (OT)-According to the NCAA, Kansas didn't play anybody in the 2008 National Championship Game. 37-1 Memphis was well on its way to the national title when Kansas began fouling. Had the Tigers simply made free throws, they would've won going away, but they kept missing, keeping the Jayhawks in the game. With Kansas down three and 2.1 seconds left, Mario Chalmers sank a miracle trey to cap the comeback and send the game into overtime, where Kansas dominated to capture its first championship in 20 years.
2. 1987: Indiana 74, Syracuse 73-Boeheim's first final was his first close call, and it came during that great run of close National Championship Games in the mid-80s. With all due respect to Melo and Gerry Mac and the rest of the 2003 championship team, this might've been the best Syracuse team ever. They had the lead until the final seconds, when Keith Smart hit a 10-foot jumper to give Bobby Knight and the Hoosiers another title.
1. 1985: Villanova 66, Georgetown 64-Without question, this is the greatest Championship Game of the 64-team era, and it came in the very-first year of the expansion. The Big East was the absolute pinnacle of college basketball in the mid-80s, capped by the record three teams in the Final Four in 1985 (thankfully, all three of them will be in the New Big East next season). Patrick Ewing was one of the greatest players in college basketball history. Georgetown was the defending champions and in its third Championship Game in four years. They were heavily favored against their conference rivals, who snuck into the Tournament as a No. 8 seed. The Wildcats, though, had the perfect game plan and played a virtually flawless game, shooting 71.4 percent from the field to pull off the monumental upset, which, along with NC State vs. Houston, is one of the two best in NCAA Tournament history. They're still the lowest-seeded team ever to win a national title.
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