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The 10 Best March Madness Winners: Our List of the Greatest College Basketball Teams
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UCLA won 10 national championships in a 12-year stretch between 1964-75, so you could legitimately fill out a list of college basketball’s greatest teams exclusively from the Bruins’ decade of dominance.
But what fun would that be?
So instead of bogging down our list with the same teams, manned by many of the same players, we’ve decided to include only 1 UCLA team from each of the 3-season eras centered around Hall of Fame big men Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Walton.
And while the 7 teams that went through their championship seasons without a loss are clearly given top consideration for inclusion since you can’t get any better than undefeated, they’re not automatically ranked among the top 7 because of changing times, NCAA Tournament expansion and other factors that have made winning much more difficult in recent years.
Best March Madness Champions of All-Time
Eighty-six teams have cut down the nets as national champions since March Madness as we know it came into existence with the first NCAA Tournament in 1939.
That includes Florida, which rallied to beat Houston 65-63 and win the 2025 NCAA Tournament title. The Gators were outstanding — but also fortunate, having to rally in three consecutive March Madness games to win the title. So the Gators just missed the cut of being among the all-time top 10.
Here’s our look at the 10 best champions of all-time:
10. Kentucky 2012 (38-2)
John Calipari’s Wildcats didn’t just return Kentucky to the top of the college basketball mountain for the first time in 14 years and set a Division I record for the most wins in a season. They broke the mold of what a championship team is supposed to look like. The bulk of their lineup was made up of 1-and-done freshmen. Big man Anthony Davis was the nation’s top-ranked recruit. Michael Kidd-Gilchrist was the No. 1 small forward while Marquis Teague was the top-rated point guard. Together with 4 other future NBA Draft picks Doron Lamb, Terrence Jones, Darius Miller and Kyle Wiltjer, they steamrolled their way through March Madness, winning all 6 of their games on the way to the title by at least 8 points.
9. UConn 2024 (37-3)
The Huskies made it look easy in defending the national championship they won in 2023. Dan Hurley’s top overall seed didn’t trail in the second half of any of its 6 NCAA Tournament victories on the way to becoming the first team since the event expanded to 64 teams in 1985 to win every postseason game by at least 14 points. UConn also set an NCAA Tournament record by outscoring its opponents by a combined total of 140 points while its 23.3-point average margin of victory is second only to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s UCLA team in 1967. The Huskies accomplished that dominance on the strength of a balanced lineup that featured 5 double-figure scorers, led by first-team All-American shooting guard Tristen Newton and big man Donovan Clingan. Newton was named Final Four Most Outstanding Player.
8. North Carolina 1982 (32-2)
The Tar Heels made the cover of Sports Illustrated after being chosen as the magazine’s preseason No. 1. Four players appeared in the photo, along with coach Dean Smith – future Hall of Famers James Worthy and Sam Perkins, forward Matt Doherty and point guard Jimmy Black. The only starter who wasn’t included was a skinny freshman named Michael Jordan. That’s how talented UNC’s 1981-82 team was. Although he quickly gained Smith’s trust, the player generally acknowledged as the greatest ever to play the game was just his team’s third option between All-American Worthy and the multi-talented Perkins. And yet, with UNC trailing by 1 and time running out against Georgetown, it was Jordan who hit the winning shot to finally deliver Smith his first title after 3 previous championship game losses.
7. Duke 1992 (30-2)
The defending national champion Blue Devils were a cocky bunch with a swagger that transformed them from the plucky underdog that upset UNLV a year earlier to the team everyone loved to hate. It’s an identity star Christian Laettner reinforced during a classic Elite Eight battle against Kentucky when he delivered a stomp to the chest of the Wildcats’ Aminu Timberlake. But Laettner, along with teammates Bobby Hurley and Grant Hill, had the talent to back it up. Laettner won the Kentucky game with his famous buzzer-beating jumper off a court-length feed from Hill. Hurley earned Most Outstanding Player honors at the Final Four after Duke humbled Indiana and Michigan’s Fab Five to become the first repeat champion since the UCLA dynasty 19 years earlier.
6. North Carolina, 1957 (32-0)
Coach Frank McGuire was lured to Chapel Hill from St. John’s in 1952 with the task of turning the Tar Heels into a national power. And it only took him 5 years to deliver. Loading his roster with players from his native New York, including national Player of the Year Lennie Rosenbluth – who averaged 28 points per game – the dapper McGuire put together a team that ran the table and helped turn Tobacco Road into a main thoroughfare of college basketball. The Tar Heels were a supremely talented group, but they were just as scrappy. They had to survive 6 overtimes – 3 each against Michigan State in the national semifinal and Wilt Chamberlain’s Kansas in the championship game – to finish off their unbeaten season and earn their title.
5. San Francisco, 1956 (29-0)
Before Bill Russell and KC Jones won 8 NBA championships together with the Boston Celtics, they teamed up for a pair of NCAA titles while winning 55 straight games as members of the San Francisco Dons. The second of those teams earned the distinction of becoming the first team in the March Madness era to finish a season undefeated, with Russell averaging an astounding 21 points and 21 rebounds per game. The Dons’ achievement is all the more impressive considering that Jones, its second-best player, didn’t play because of a controversial NCAA eligibility ruling.
4. NC State, 1974 (30-1)
The 1973 Wolfpack was just as good, if not better than the ’74 champions. But despite going 29-0 and winning the ACC, they were banned from the NCAA Tournament because of NCAA sanctions. That disappointment only made the returning core of David “Skywalker” Thompson, 7-4 center Tom Burleson and 5-7 point guard Monte Towe more determined to claim the title they thought they deserved. After an early-season loss to defending champion UCLA, State reeled off 28 straight wins, punctuated by an epic overtime win against Maryland in the ACC Tournament final that secured its automatic NCAA bid. Once there, the Wolfpack overcame what appeared to be a serious injury to Thompson when he crashed to the floor head-first against Pittsburgh, to dethrone UCLA in double-overtime in the Final Four semifinals and beat Marquette in the final.
3. UCLA, 1968 (29-1)
Even though the Bruins went undefeated the previous season, the ’68 team was arguably the best team of the Lew Alcindor (aka Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) era. And it might very well have gone down in history as the greatest team ever had it not been for an eye injury suffered by Alcindor a week before what has become known as “The Game of the Century” against No. 2 Houston. Alcindor suffered through the worst game of his career and was outplayed by Cougars star Elvin Hayes in an 81-79 loss at the Astrodome. That only served as motivation for the rematch. Led by a healthy Alcindor, UCLA didn’t just beat Houston in the national semifinal. It made a statement by hammering the Cougars 101-69 before beating North Carolina 2 days later for the national championship.
2. Indiana, 1976 (32-0)
The last team to make it through a season undefeated, Bobby Knight’s Hoosiers weren’t as dominant as some of UCLA’s great run of champions. But few teams before or since have boasted such a perfectly blended balance of talent, cohesiveness, grit and coaching. Indiana started the season by beating the Soviet National team in an exhibition, then taking down defending champion UCLA in its official opener. The Hoosiers finished just as strong by winning its 4 NCAA Tournament games by an average of 13 points, including victories against No. 2 Marquette and UCLA again before routing Big Ten rival Michigan in the national championship game. Four of the 5 starters were first-round NBA Draft picks. Scott May was the national Player of the Year. Big man Kent Benson, who played the final 2-plus months with a broken wrist, was also an All-American.
1. UCLA, 1972 (30-0)
The best of the 3 Walton-era teams, these Bruins didn’t just win the championship. They lapped the field in doing it. Their average margin of victory was 30 points. That’s not a misprint. Only 7 of their 30 wins were decided by less than 20 points. And only 2 teams managed to stay within single digits – Oregon State (78-72 in early January) and Florida State (81-76 in the national championship game). Walton averaged 21 points and 15.5 rebounds per game as a sophomore while shooting 64% from the floor. And he didn’t do it all alone. This UCLA team also featured 2 other players who went on to have long NBA careers, forward Keith (later Jamaal) Wilkes and point guard Henry Bibby.
Award-winning columnist Brett Friedlander has covered the ACC and college basketball since the 1980s.
