College basketball is sort of a good ole boys club. There have been 77 NCAA Tournaments since God reached down and created the NCAA Tournament in 1939, six schools (UCLA, Kentucky, Duke, Indiana, UNC and UConn) have won 38 of them. You have to go back to Syracuse in 2003 to find the last time a school won its first national championship. Butler came within a half inch of its first title in 2010, but it just wasn’t meant to be. For as much parity and entertainment as March Madness tends to provide, the same few teams seem to always end up cutting down the nets in April.
There are currently 351 D1 basketball schools, and 310 of them have never won a national championship. I decided to go through and rank the ten best from these 310. Here is what I came up with.
1. Oklahoma Sooners
NCAA Tournament appearances: 30
Elite Eights: 9
Final Fours: 5
Championship game appearances: 2
The Sooners have been within an arms reach of tournament glory for almost the entire 77-year history of March Madness. Their Final Four woes span all the way back from the first tournament in 1939 up to the most recent tournament in 2016. They came up on the wrong side of one of the biggest upsets in national championship game history in 1988 when they lost to a Kansas team they had beaten handily twice during the regular season.
They get the top spot in large part due to their consistency as a program over the years. Their five Final Four appearances have come in five different decades, and each of their last four coaches has reached at least one Elite Eight during his tenure. Given what Lon Kruger has done in his six year at Oklahoma so far, there’s a chance the Sooners may play their way off this list sometime during his tenure.
2. Illinois Fighting Illini
NCAA Tournament appearances: 30
Elite Eights: 9
Final Fours: 5
Championship game appearances: 1
The 2005 Illinois team is without a doubt the best team of this millennium that didn’t win a title. They came within one game of setting the NCAA single-season record for wins, but came up five points short against North Carolina in the title game.
The fact that Illinois has never won a title is especially noteworthy given the vast amount of high school basketball talent in the state. Chicago has been a breeding ground for some of the greatest players of all time, but the Illini can’t seem to convince any of them to come to Champaign.
3. Houston Cougars
NCAA Tournament appearances: 20
Elite Eights: 5
Final Fours: 5
Championship game appearances: 2
The early 1980s Cougars accomplished just about everything under the sun except winning it all. They went to three consecutive Final Fours and back-to-back national championship games, coming up just short each time. They were on the wrong side of the most dramatic finish in national championship history as they lost to Jim Valvano’s North Carolina State team at the buzzer. If only Benny Anders would have jumped the passing lane a split second sooner. If only Hakeem Olajuwon would’ve boxed out Lorenzo Charles instead of watching the shot. If only a few things had gone differently, Houston could easily have two or three titles. But they didn’t, and they don’t. It seems very likely that the Cougars will have a place on this list for a very long time.
4. Kansas State Wildcats
NCAA Tournament appearances: 28
Elite Eights: 12
Final Fours: 4
Championship game appearances: 1
Long before the days of Bruceketball, Kansas State was one of the premier college basketball programs in the country. They went to three Final Fours in ten years between 1948-58, including a national championship appearance in 1951. The program has fallen off quite a bit in the past few decades. They’ve advanced past the second round of the NCAA Tournament just once since 1988.
5. Memphis Tigers
NCAA Tournament appearances: 26
Elite Eights: 6
Final Fours: 3
Championship game appearances: 2
Memphis has been to three Final Fours in their history, and two of them have been vacated by the NCAA. The Tigers were one free throw away from a title in 2008. If Derrick Rose and Chris Douglas-Roberts wouldn’t have gone a combined 1/5 from the line in the final minute of the national championship game, Kansas would have never had a chance to climb back into the game and the name Mario Chalmers wouldn’t make every Memphis fan’s heart drop.
6. Louisiana State Tigers
NCAA Tournament appearances: 21
Elite Eights: 6
Final Fours: 4
Championship game appearances: 0
While they are known more as a football school, LSU was once the stomping ground for the greatest college basketball player of all time. “Pistol” Pete Maravich averaged more than 44 points a game as WITHOUT A THREE-POINT LINE. Many project that he would’ve averaged close to 60 had the three-point line existed when he played.
The height of LSU basketball was the 8 year period from 1980-87 during which they reached five Elite Eights and two Final Fours. Besides Ben Simmons’ semester and a half in Baton Rogue, Tiger fans have not had much the cheer about since their last Final Four appearance in 2006.
7. West Virginia Mountaineers
NCAA Tournament appearances: 27
Elite Eights: 3
Final Fours: 2
Championship game appearances: 1
West Virginia seems to always be good, but never great. They’re consistently one of the top-ranked teams in the country, but they can never seem to get over the hump. Their lone national championship appearance came almost 60 years ago when some guy named Jerry West scored 160 points in five games during the 1959 tournament. If he would’ve scored 162, West Virginia wouldn’t be on this list. The Mountaineers lost a 71-70 heart-breaker to California. Little did anyone know that they’d never get that close to a title again.
8. Texas Longhorns
NCAA Tournament appearances: 33
Elite Eights: 7
Final Fours: 3
Championship game appearances: 0
Texas basketball seemingly disappeared for four decades during the mid-1900s. After two Final Four appearances in five years between 1943-47, they won just one NCAA Tournament game over the next 42 years. Recently, the Longhorns have produced two National Player of the Year winners in T.J. Ford and Kevin Durant. Good news for Texas fans, they will continue to be highly ranked every preseason from now until eternity. Bad news; they will continue their habit of perennially underachieving.
9. St. John’s Red Storm
NCAA Tournament appearances: 29
Elite Eights: 6
Final Fours: 2
Championship game appearances: 1
Hey did you guys know Chris Mullin went to St. John’s? The Red Storm are currently the eighth winning-est college basketball program of all time. This is another program that should have accomplished more than it has given the surplus of talent in New York that’s a stones-throw away from campus. St. John’s appears to be a ways off from a return to glory as they posted an abysmal 1-17 record in Big East play last season. Good news for Red Storm fans, they’ve already tripled their Big East win total from last year. Brick by brick I suppose.
10. Notre Dame Fighting Irish
NCAA Tournament appearances: 35
Elite Eights: 7
Final Fours: 1
Championship game appearances: 0
Much like their football program, Notre Dame basketball would be considered an elite program if college basketball had ended 50 years ago. The good news it that the Irish appear to be on the rise again. They have been to back-to-back Elite Eights after not advancing that far since 1979. They are currently ranked 15th in the AP poll, and they appear to be legitimate Final Four contenders. Time will tell, but the Irish appear to be a serious threat to play themselves off this list sometime in the near future.
