SWC75
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A couple of weeks ago I did a study of “The Last Team Standing” and how going undefeated longer than anyone else impacted- or did not impact- how far they went in the post season. I decided to take a closer look at teams that have won at least their first 20 games. The ESPN College Basketball encyclopedia gives the weekly rankings- and records- from the first year a poll was done, 1948-49. These teams started 20-0:
1950 Holy Cross, who had won 1947 title, started 26-0, (ranked #3), then stumbled to 1-2 the rest of the way. They went right to the Elite 8 due to the size of the tournament back then, lost both that game and the Eastern Regional consolation game to finish 27-4. (There was no Final Four: there were only two regionals.)
1951 Columbia started 23-0 and was ranked #3. They lost in the Sweet 16 and wound up 23-1. Ouch!
1953 Seton Hall started 27-0 and ranked #1 by the coaches, #2 by the writers. The finished the regular season 1-2 but rallied to win the NIT, which was considered a rival tournament to the NCAA that eastern teams tended to prefer in those days. Final record: 31-2.
1954 Two teams made it to at least 20-0. Kentucky ran the table at 25-0 and refused to go to the NCAA tournament over a dispute with that organization. They wound up ranked #1 while LaSalle, whom they had defeated by 73-60, went on to win the NCAA tournament. Duquesne had started 22-0 and were actually ranked ahead of Kentucky for 2 weeks. Then they lost a couple of games and, like Seton Hall opted for the NIT, where they lost in the title game and finished 26-3. They came back to win the NIT the next year.
1956 San Francisco became the first undefeated national champion at 29-0. They played 25 regular season games.
1957 North Carolina became the second at 32-0. They played 24 regular season games and then won both the ACC tournament, (the only conference tournament in those days) and then the NCAAs.
1961 Defending National champion Ohio State went 24-0 in the regular season and continued the streak all the way to the NCAA final, where they were defeated in overtime by Cincinnati, 65-70. They finished 27-1.
1962 The Buckeyes won their first 22 before losing to Wisconsin. They then returned to the NCAA final only to lose again to Cincinnati. They finished 26-2.
1963 Loyola of Chicago won their first 21 games, finished the regular season 24-2 and went on to win the NCAA title in OT over Cincinnati to finish 29-2.
1964 UCLA was the 30-0 national champion. They had a 26-0 regular season.
1966 Kentucky and Texas Western, (UTEP) both started 23-0. The Wildcats split their last two regular season games and won three more to get to the NCAA final against the miners who lost their last regular season game, not been given a bye in the round of 32 and then won 5-0, including beating Kentucky in the famous final game. They wound up 28-1 to 27-2 for Kentucky.
1967 UCLA again went 30-0 after a 26-0 regular season.
1968 Houston beat UCLA 71-69 in the Astrodome in “The Game of the Century” and ran the table to 28-0 in the regular season and a #1 ranking. St. Bonaventure, with Bob Lanier, also was unbeaten in the regular season at 22-0. The Bonnies went down hard to North Carolina in the Sweet 16, 72-91 and then lost the consolation game to Columbia, 75-95.to finish 23-2. Ho0usotn was 31-0 when UCLA decapitated them 101-69 in the national semi-finals. They then sleep-walked through a consolation loss to Ohio State to finish 31-2.
1969 UCLA won their first 25 games before losing 44-46 to USC in their regular season finale. Santa Clara had started out 21-0 and faced off against the Bruins in the West Regional final. It was 0-18 before they got a shot off and the Bruins blew them away, 90-52 and went on to their third straight national title at 29-1.
1970 Even without Lew Alcindor, (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), UCLA started 21-0 before stumbling to a 3-2 finish. They got together in the NCAAs and won their fourth straight title to finish 28-2.
1971 Marquette and Pennsylvania both finished the regular season undefeated 27-0 and 26-0 respectively. The Ivy league champs were more highly -regarded then than they are not. UCLA, with one loss was ranked #1 and Marquette and Penn were #2-3. But the Warriors lost to Ohio State by a point in the Sweet sixteen. Then Penn lost by a whole lotta points to Villanova in the Elite 8, (47-90, one of the strangest games I’ve ever seen: if you blinked when a shot went up you wouldn’t know who won. Penn shot about 20% and Nova about 80%- everything else was about even). Both teams wound up a very hard to take 28-1.
1972 Marquette was again on a roll, going 22-0 before losing 3 of their last 5 and losing in the Sweet 16 in the NCAA to finished 25-4. But this was the first year of the Walton Gang at UCLA and they went 30-0 to win the Bruin’s 6th straight national championship.
1973 The Bruins became the first team to be undefeated national champions two years in a row. (In both seasons they were 26-0 in the regular season and finished 30-0.) But they weren’t the only undefeated team. North Carolina State was 27-0 but on probation so they stayed home. The next year they lost to UCLA 66-84 in the regular season but came back to beat the Bruins 80-77 in two overtimes in the national semi-finals and went on to win the title at 30-1. But the Bruins lost 4 times that year and neither was a 20-0 team.
1975 Indiana roared through the regular season at 29-0and was clearly the best team in the country. Then their best player, Scott May, broke his arm and Kentucky, who had lost by 24 points to Indian in the regular season, beat them in a regional final 92-90 and went on to lose to Wooden’s last UCLA champions in the final. It would have been fun to see Wooden try to beat an undefeated team in the final after he had had four 30-0 champions himself.
1976 Everybody stayed healthy and virtually the same Indiana team went 32-0, the last undefeated national champions. They had a 27-0 regular season. But they weren’t the only undefeated team in the Final Four. Rutgers had gone 28-0 and were ranked #4 after the regular season. They made it to the national semi-finals and if they’d gotten past Michigan, it would have been 31-0 Indiana vs. 32-0 Rutgers for the national title! But the coach turned into a pumpkin as the Scarlet Knights went down hard, 70-86 and then lost to UCLA 92-106 in the consy to finish 31-2.
1977 The era of undefeated teams did not seem like it was going to end as San Francisco, with Bill Cartwright rather than Bill Russell, won its first 29 games before losing to Notre Dame 82-93 on the last day of the regular season and then getting blown out by UNLV, 95-121 in the round of 32. They finished 29-2 and watched Marquette become the first team with 7 losses to win the national championship.
1979 Larry Bird first went to Indiana and could have been a part of their 32-0 team, (how could it get any better?). But he transferred to Indiana State and, as a senior led the to a 33-0 record and into the national finals where they lost to Magic Johnson’s Michigan State team, who finished 26-6. The Sycamores were 26-0 in the regular season.
1980 DePaul won their first 25 games . Again, Notre Dame spoiled a perfect season. The Blue Demons lost to UCLA in the round of 32 to finish 26-2.
1981 Oregon State did exactly what DePaul had done the previous year- start 25-0, lose (to Arizona State), win a game and then bow out in the round of 32, (Kansas State) to finish 26-2. Ralph Sampson’s Virginia team got off to a 22-0 start, stumbled to a 1-2 regular season finish, split two games in the ACC tournament but went to the Final Four, losing to North Carolina in the semis, (Indiana beat the Heels for the title to become the first 9 loss national champion).
1983 UNLV started 24-0, lost 2 of 3, won their conference tournament but lost in the round of 32 to eventual champion NC State (by a point), to finish 28-3.
1984 Michael Jordan’s North Carolina team started 24-0, got beat by Arkansas, win another 5 in a row, split two games in the ACC tournament and then lost to Indiana in the Sweet 16 to finish 28-3.
1986 UNC again began 21-0. This time they stumbled to a 26-4 and then went out in the first round of the ACC tournament and again lose in the Sweet 16. They finished 28-6/ Memphis (State as they were known then), started 20-0, went 4-4, then lost in the finals of the Metro Conference tourney and split two NCAA games to also finish 28-6.
1991 Like Ohio State thirty years before, defending national champion UNLV rolled through the regular season undefeated, (27-0) and onto the Final Four. But unlike the Buckeyes, they didn’t make it to the finals, losing to Duke in the semis, (after crushing them by 30 in the previous year’s finals. They wound up 34-1. Ugh.
1996 Massachusetts went 26-0 before losing to George Washington, (I understand he was tall but he was only one guy!). Then they won a couple more and the Atlantic 10 to9runament. They won their way to a national semi-final rematch with Kentucky, whom they had defeated previously, But this time they lost to finish 35-2.
1997 Kansas began 21-0 before losing to Missouri in double-overtime. They then won another 12 in a row, (including the Big 12 tournament) before losing to eventual champion Arizona in the Sweet 16. They finished 34-2.
2004 It was seven years before anybody opened the season with 20 straight wins and then two teams did it: St. Joseph’s and Stanford were neck and neck much of the year. The Hawks started out ranked #13 by the writers and #18 by the coaches. Stanford was #20 and #17, respectively. Stanford hit the top 10 on December 16th at 9th in the writer’s poll. They were both in it the next week. The Cardinal made it to #5 in the writer’s poll on 12/31. BY 1/20, Stanford was #2 in both polls and St. Joseph’s #3. And on 2/17, they became #1-#2, with Stanford at 21-0 and St. Joe’s 22-0. Stanford had stayed unbeaten when Nick Robinson hit a 35 footer to beat Arizona. Who would lose first? And if they didn’t lose, would we get to see two undefeated teams, one form the East and one form the West, play for the national title? Unfortunately, no. Stanford lost its last regular season game to Washington to finish 26-1. St. Joseph’s did finish the regular season undefeated, 27-0 and ranked #1. And then they lost in the first round of the Atlantic 10 tournament. Stanford won the Pac10 tournament but fell to Alabama in the round of 32, (the Tide then beat us). The Hawks lost by 2 to Oklahoma State in the Elite 8. Connecticut, with 6 losses, gave Georgia Tech their 10th loss in the finals. Both Stanford and St. Joe’s watched that game on TV with their 30-2 records.
2005 Illinois and, of all teams, Boston College, both made it to 20-0. The Eagles finished 4-3, lost in the first round of the BET and in the rebound of 32 in the NCAAs to end up a fine but unmemorable 25-5. They had been ranked as high as #4 in the country but wound up #19. Illinois, on the other hand, started at #5 and made it to #1 by 12/7. They were ranked #1 for the next 15 weeks in a row, right to the end of the regular season. They made it to 29-0 before losing by a point to Ohio State. They won the Big Ten tournament and marched to the NCAA title game to face North Carolina. The Illini fell behind by 15 points, made a furious rally to tie it but the Tar Heels scored the last 5 points to win the national title. Illinois wound up a valiant 37-2. We would be very proud, if a bit frustrated if our season ended that way.
2008. Memphis started 26-0, lost to finished 30-1, won their conference tournament and entered the Final Four 38-1, with a chance to be the first college team ever to win 40 games in a season. Kansas had started 20-0, ‘slumped’ to 28-3 but won the Big 12 tournament and also made it to the Final Four. It was the first Final Four that had all #1 seeds. The two teams blew out traditional powers UCLA and North Carolina and met each other for the national tile. In one of the great games, Kansas defeated Memphis 75-68 in overtime after Mario Chalmers’ buzzer-beating three forced the over-time.
2011 Ohio State and San Diego State both made it to 20-0. The Aztecs stopped there, finished 29-2, won the Mountain West tourney and made it to the Sweet 16, where they lost to eventual champion Connecticut. The Buckeyes were #1 when they finally lost after going 24-0. They finished 29-2, won the Big 10 tournament and got to the Sweet 16. They’d had a game against Wisconsin where they missed their first three pointer and then made an incredible 14 in a row to crush the defensive-oriented Badgers, 93-65. They looked like likely national champions with Jared Sullinger inside and all those shooters outside. Then they went cold against Kentucky, shooting 33% and lost 60-62 to finish 34-3, just like the Aztecs.
2012 Kentucky didn’t make it to 20-0 but Syracuse did. Then Fab Melo got suspended and we lost at Notre Dame. We sucked it up and won at Cincinnati and won 10 in a row to finish the regular season at 30-1. So did Kentucky and we waited for the inevitable confrontation: which never came. We lost to that same Cincinnati team in the BET and Fab got suspended again. Still, we fought our way to the Elite 8, where we lost to Ohio State and the refs, who decided to call 28 fouls on us. We finished 34-3.
2014 Arizona, Syracuse and Wichita State all made it to 20-0. Arizona has since lost twice. But the Orange, (25-0) and the Shockers (27-0) are still going. But what will be their fate?
Let’s compile some stats:
Four teams have lost at 20-0. Two made it to the round of 32, (Rd32), on to the Sweet 16, (S16) and won won a national championship, (NC). Let’s give a team 7 points for an NC, 6 for runner-up (RU), 5 for final four, (FF), 4 for Elite 8, (E8), three for S16, 2 for Rd32, 1 for Rd64 and none if they didn’t play in the post season. That would give the 20-0 teams 14 points. Divide by 4 teams and you get 3.5.
Five teams lost at 21-0: NC, E8, NC, S16, S16 and S16. That’s 27 points, or 5.4 per team.
Five teams lost at 22-0: NIT RU, RU, S16, S16, FF. I’ll treat the NIT in 1954 as the equivalent of the NCAAs, (which it was largely viewed as at the time, at least in the East). That’s 23 pints, or 4.6 per team.
Three teams lost at 23-0: Rd32, RU, NC. That’s 15 points or 5.0 per team.
Four teams lost at 24-0: NC, RU, R32, S16. That’s 18 points or 4.5 per team.
Four teams lost at 25-0: Kentucky stayed home in in ’54, NC, Rd32, Rd32. That’s 11 points or 2.75 per team. If you exclude Kentucky it’s 3.67.
No less than 10 teams lost at 26-0: S16, NC, NC, E8, NC, NC, RU, FF, Rd32, RU. That’s 50 points or 5.0 per team.
Six teams lost at 27-0: NIT Champion, S16, Probation, NC, FF, E8. This one’s complication. I’ll treat Seton Hall’s 1953 NIT title as a “7”. NC State, like Kentucky in ’54 gets no points as they never played in the post season. That’s 26 points for six teams or 4.33 per team. If you exclude NC State, who didn’t get a chance, it’s 5.2.
Two teams lost at 28-0 and both lost in the Final Four: 5.0 per team.
Three teams lost at 29-0: E8, Rd32, RU. 12 points or 4.0 per team.
No team has lost a 30th or 31st regular season game for their first lost.
St. Joseph’s ’04 is the only team to go into a conference tournament undefeated and lose. They went to the Elite 8. Three other teams have entered their conference tournament unbeaten and stayed that way. Those teams won one national championship, lost in the final and lost in the semi-finals, respectively.
Fifteen teams have entered the NCAA tournament undefeated. Seven have won the title. Two others have reached the title game and lost. Two more made it to the Final Four, two to Elite 8 and two lost in the Sweet 16. That’s 85 points or an average of 5.67.
Comments: This analysis has a lot of weaknesses: small sample, different eras, there used to be byes in the NCAA, the number of regular season games has increased. FWIW, I do not see a trend that teams that push their undefeated record the farthest do better in the NCAAs. It is interesting that teams entering the NCAAs undefeated averaged 5.67 points, which would take them, on average to the runner-up position. The other 32 teams, (excluding Kentucky ’54 and NC State ’73 who stayed home), totaled 136 points, 4.25, suggesting that Jim Boeheim’s theory that a team that entered the tournament undefeated would have an edge due to their confidence level may be true. But in the meantime it doesn’t appear that it really matters when our first loss comes. It’s what happens afterwards that really matters.
1950 Holy Cross, who had won 1947 title, started 26-0, (ranked #3), then stumbled to 1-2 the rest of the way. They went right to the Elite 8 due to the size of the tournament back then, lost both that game and the Eastern Regional consolation game to finish 27-4. (There was no Final Four: there were only two regionals.)
1951 Columbia started 23-0 and was ranked #3. They lost in the Sweet 16 and wound up 23-1. Ouch!
1953 Seton Hall started 27-0 and ranked #1 by the coaches, #2 by the writers. The finished the regular season 1-2 but rallied to win the NIT, which was considered a rival tournament to the NCAA that eastern teams tended to prefer in those days. Final record: 31-2.
1954 Two teams made it to at least 20-0. Kentucky ran the table at 25-0 and refused to go to the NCAA tournament over a dispute with that organization. They wound up ranked #1 while LaSalle, whom they had defeated by 73-60, went on to win the NCAA tournament. Duquesne had started 22-0 and were actually ranked ahead of Kentucky for 2 weeks. Then they lost a couple of games and, like Seton Hall opted for the NIT, where they lost in the title game and finished 26-3. They came back to win the NIT the next year.
1956 San Francisco became the first undefeated national champion at 29-0. They played 25 regular season games.
1957 North Carolina became the second at 32-0. They played 24 regular season games and then won both the ACC tournament, (the only conference tournament in those days) and then the NCAAs.
1961 Defending National champion Ohio State went 24-0 in the regular season and continued the streak all the way to the NCAA final, where they were defeated in overtime by Cincinnati, 65-70. They finished 27-1.
1962 The Buckeyes won their first 22 before losing to Wisconsin. They then returned to the NCAA final only to lose again to Cincinnati. They finished 26-2.
1963 Loyola of Chicago won their first 21 games, finished the regular season 24-2 and went on to win the NCAA title in OT over Cincinnati to finish 29-2.
1964 UCLA was the 30-0 national champion. They had a 26-0 regular season.
1966 Kentucky and Texas Western, (UTEP) both started 23-0. The Wildcats split their last two regular season games and won three more to get to the NCAA final against the miners who lost their last regular season game, not been given a bye in the round of 32 and then won 5-0, including beating Kentucky in the famous final game. They wound up 28-1 to 27-2 for Kentucky.
1967 UCLA again went 30-0 after a 26-0 regular season.
1968 Houston beat UCLA 71-69 in the Astrodome in “The Game of the Century” and ran the table to 28-0 in the regular season and a #1 ranking. St. Bonaventure, with Bob Lanier, also was unbeaten in the regular season at 22-0. The Bonnies went down hard to North Carolina in the Sweet 16, 72-91 and then lost the consolation game to Columbia, 75-95.to finish 23-2. Ho0usotn was 31-0 when UCLA decapitated them 101-69 in the national semi-finals. They then sleep-walked through a consolation loss to Ohio State to finish 31-2.
1969 UCLA won their first 25 games before losing 44-46 to USC in their regular season finale. Santa Clara had started out 21-0 and faced off against the Bruins in the West Regional final. It was 0-18 before they got a shot off and the Bruins blew them away, 90-52 and went on to their third straight national title at 29-1.
1970 Even without Lew Alcindor, (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), UCLA started 21-0 before stumbling to a 3-2 finish. They got together in the NCAAs and won their fourth straight title to finish 28-2.
1971 Marquette and Pennsylvania both finished the regular season undefeated 27-0 and 26-0 respectively. The Ivy league champs were more highly -regarded then than they are not. UCLA, with one loss was ranked #1 and Marquette and Penn were #2-3. But the Warriors lost to Ohio State by a point in the Sweet sixteen. Then Penn lost by a whole lotta points to Villanova in the Elite 8, (47-90, one of the strangest games I’ve ever seen: if you blinked when a shot went up you wouldn’t know who won. Penn shot about 20% and Nova about 80%- everything else was about even). Both teams wound up a very hard to take 28-1.
1972 Marquette was again on a roll, going 22-0 before losing 3 of their last 5 and losing in the Sweet 16 in the NCAA to finished 25-4. But this was the first year of the Walton Gang at UCLA and they went 30-0 to win the Bruin’s 6th straight national championship.
1973 The Bruins became the first team to be undefeated national champions two years in a row. (In both seasons they were 26-0 in the regular season and finished 30-0.) But they weren’t the only undefeated team. North Carolina State was 27-0 but on probation so they stayed home. The next year they lost to UCLA 66-84 in the regular season but came back to beat the Bruins 80-77 in two overtimes in the national semi-finals and went on to win the title at 30-1. But the Bruins lost 4 times that year and neither was a 20-0 team.
1975 Indiana roared through the regular season at 29-0and was clearly the best team in the country. Then their best player, Scott May, broke his arm and Kentucky, who had lost by 24 points to Indian in the regular season, beat them in a regional final 92-90 and went on to lose to Wooden’s last UCLA champions in the final. It would have been fun to see Wooden try to beat an undefeated team in the final after he had had four 30-0 champions himself.
1976 Everybody stayed healthy and virtually the same Indiana team went 32-0, the last undefeated national champions. They had a 27-0 regular season. But they weren’t the only undefeated team in the Final Four. Rutgers had gone 28-0 and were ranked #4 after the regular season. They made it to the national semi-finals and if they’d gotten past Michigan, it would have been 31-0 Indiana vs. 32-0 Rutgers for the national title! But the coach turned into a pumpkin as the Scarlet Knights went down hard, 70-86 and then lost to UCLA 92-106 in the consy to finish 31-2.
1977 The era of undefeated teams did not seem like it was going to end as San Francisco, with Bill Cartwright rather than Bill Russell, won its first 29 games before losing to Notre Dame 82-93 on the last day of the regular season and then getting blown out by UNLV, 95-121 in the round of 32. They finished 29-2 and watched Marquette become the first team with 7 losses to win the national championship.
1979 Larry Bird first went to Indiana and could have been a part of their 32-0 team, (how could it get any better?). But he transferred to Indiana State and, as a senior led the to a 33-0 record and into the national finals where they lost to Magic Johnson’s Michigan State team, who finished 26-6. The Sycamores were 26-0 in the regular season.
1980 DePaul won their first 25 games . Again, Notre Dame spoiled a perfect season. The Blue Demons lost to UCLA in the round of 32 to finish 26-2.
1981 Oregon State did exactly what DePaul had done the previous year- start 25-0, lose (to Arizona State), win a game and then bow out in the round of 32, (Kansas State) to finish 26-2. Ralph Sampson’s Virginia team got off to a 22-0 start, stumbled to a 1-2 regular season finish, split two games in the ACC tournament but went to the Final Four, losing to North Carolina in the semis, (Indiana beat the Heels for the title to become the first 9 loss national champion).
1983 UNLV started 24-0, lost 2 of 3, won their conference tournament but lost in the round of 32 to eventual champion NC State (by a point), to finish 28-3.
1984 Michael Jordan’s North Carolina team started 24-0, got beat by Arkansas, win another 5 in a row, split two games in the ACC tournament and then lost to Indiana in the Sweet 16 to finish 28-3.
1986 UNC again began 21-0. This time they stumbled to a 26-4 and then went out in the first round of the ACC tournament and again lose in the Sweet 16. They finished 28-6/ Memphis (State as they were known then), started 20-0, went 4-4, then lost in the finals of the Metro Conference tourney and split two NCAA games to also finish 28-6.
1991 Like Ohio State thirty years before, defending national champion UNLV rolled through the regular season undefeated, (27-0) and onto the Final Four. But unlike the Buckeyes, they didn’t make it to the finals, losing to Duke in the semis, (after crushing them by 30 in the previous year’s finals. They wound up 34-1. Ugh.
1996 Massachusetts went 26-0 before losing to George Washington, (I understand he was tall but he was only one guy!). Then they won a couple more and the Atlantic 10 to9runament. They won their way to a national semi-final rematch with Kentucky, whom they had defeated previously, But this time they lost to finish 35-2.
1997 Kansas began 21-0 before losing to Missouri in double-overtime. They then won another 12 in a row, (including the Big 12 tournament) before losing to eventual champion Arizona in the Sweet 16. They finished 34-2.
2004 It was seven years before anybody opened the season with 20 straight wins and then two teams did it: St. Joseph’s and Stanford were neck and neck much of the year. The Hawks started out ranked #13 by the writers and #18 by the coaches. Stanford was #20 and #17, respectively. Stanford hit the top 10 on December 16th at 9th in the writer’s poll. They were both in it the next week. The Cardinal made it to #5 in the writer’s poll on 12/31. BY 1/20, Stanford was #2 in both polls and St. Joseph’s #3. And on 2/17, they became #1-#2, with Stanford at 21-0 and St. Joe’s 22-0. Stanford had stayed unbeaten when Nick Robinson hit a 35 footer to beat Arizona. Who would lose first? And if they didn’t lose, would we get to see two undefeated teams, one form the East and one form the West, play for the national title? Unfortunately, no. Stanford lost its last regular season game to Washington to finish 26-1. St. Joseph’s did finish the regular season undefeated, 27-0 and ranked #1. And then they lost in the first round of the Atlantic 10 tournament. Stanford won the Pac10 tournament but fell to Alabama in the round of 32, (the Tide then beat us). The Hawks lost by 2 to Oklahoma State in the Elite 8. Connecticut, with 6 losses, gave Georgia Tech their 10th loss in the finals. Both Stanford and St. Joe’s watched that game on TV with their 30-2 records.
2005 Illinois and, of all teams, Boston College, both made it to 20-0. The Eagles finished 4-3, lost in the first round of the BET and in the rebound of 32 in the NCAAs to end up a fine but unmemorable 25-5. They had been ranked as high as #4 in the country but wound up #19. Illinois, on the other hand, started at #5 and made it to #1 by 12/7. They were ranked #1 for the next 15 weeks in a row, right to the end of the regular season. They made it to 29-0 before losing by a point to Ohio State. They won the Big Ten tournament and marched to the NCAA title game to face North Carolina. The Illini fell behind by 15 points, made a furious rally to tie it but the Tar Heels scored the last 5 points to win the national title. Illinois wound up a valiant 37-2. We would be very proud, if a bit frustrated if our season ended that way.
2008. Memphis started 26-0, lost to finished 30-1, won their conference tournament and entered the Final Four 38-1, with a chance to be the first college team ever to win 40 games in a season. Kansas had started 20-0, ‘slumped’ to 28-3 but won the Big 12 tournament and also made it to the Final Four. It was the first Final Four that had all #1 seeds. The two teams blew out traditional powers UCLA and North Carolina and met each other for the national tile. In one of the great games, Kansas defeated Memphis 75-68 in overtime after Mario Chalmers’ buzzer-beating three forced the over-time.
2011 Ohio State and San Diego State both made it to 20-0. The Aztecs stopped there, finished 29-2, won the Mountain West tourney and made it to the Sweet 16, where they lost to eventual champion Connecticut. The Buckeyes were #1 when they finally lost after going 24-0. They finished 29-2, won the Big 10 tournament and got to the Sweet 16. They’d had a game against Wisconsin where they missed their first three pointer and then made an incredible 14 in a row to crush the defensive-oriented Badgers, 93-65. They looked like likely national champions with Jared Sullinger inside and all those shooters outside. Then they went cold against Kentucky, shooting 33% and lost 60-62 to finish 34-3, just like the Aztecs.
2012 Kentucky didn’t make it to 20-0 but Syracuse did. Then Fab Melo got suspended and we lost at Notre Dame. We sucked it up and won at Cincinnati and won 10 in a row to finish the regular season at 30-1. So did Kentucky and we waited for the inevitable confrontation: which never came. We lost to that same Cincinnati team in the BET and Fab got suspended again. Still, we fought our way to the Elite 8, where we lost to Ohio State and the refs, who decided to call 28 fouls on us. We finished 34-3.
2014 Arizona, Syracuse and Wichita State all made it to 20-0. Arizona has since lost twice. But the Orange, (25-0) and the Shockers (27-0) are still going. But what will be their fate?
Let’s compile some stats:
Four teams have lost at 20-0. Two made it to the round of 32, (Rd32), on to the Sweet 16, (S16) and won won a national championship, (NC). Let’s give a team 7 points for an NC, 6 for runner-up (RU), 5 for final four, (FF), 4 for Elite 8, (E8), three for S16, 2 for Rd32, 1 for Rd64 and none if they didn’t play in the post season. That would give the 20-0 teams 14 points. Divide by 4 teams and you get 3.5.
Five teams lost at 21-0: NC, E8, NC, S16, S16 and S16. That’s 27 points, or 5.4 per team.
Five teams lost at 22-0: NIT RU, RU, S16, S16, FF. I’ll treat the NIT in 1954 as the equivalent of the NCAAs, (which it was largely viewed as at the time, at least in the East). That’s 23 pints, or 4.6 per team.
Three teams lost at 23-0: Rd32, RU, NC. That’s 15 points or 5.0 per team.
Four teams lost at 24-0: NC, RU, R32, S16. That’s 18 points or 4.5 per team.
Four teams lost at 25-0: Kentucky stayed home in in ’54, NC, Rd32, Rd32. That’s 11 points or 2.75 per team. If you exclude Kentucky it’s 3.67.
No less than 10 teams lost at 26-0: S16, NC, NC, E8, NC, NC, RU, FF, Rd32, RU. That’s 50 points or 5.0 per team.
Six teams lost at 27-0: NIT Champion, S16, Probation, NC, FF, E8. This one’s complication. I’ll treat Seton Hall’s 1953 NIT title as a “7”. NC State, like Kentucky in ’54 gets no points as they never played in the post season. That’s 26 points for six teams or 4.33 per team. If you exclude NC State, who didn’t get a chance, it’s 5.2.
Two teams lost at 28-0 and both lost in the Final Four: 5.0 per team.
Three teams lost at 29-0: E8, Rd32, RU. 12 points or 4.0 per team.
No team has lost a 30th or 31st regular season game for their first lost.
St. Joseph’s ’04 is the only team to go into a conference tournament undefeated and lose. They went to the Elite 8. Three other teams have entered their conference tournament unbeaten and stayed that way. Those teams won one national championship, lost in the final and lost in the semi-finals, respectively.
Fifteen teams have entered the NCAA tournament undefeated. Seven have won the title. Two others have reached the title game and lost. Two more made it to the Final Four, two to Elite 8 and two lost in the Sweet 16. That’s 85 points or an average of 5.67.
Comments: This analysis has a lot of weaknesses: small sample, different eras, there used to be byes in the NCAA, the number of regular season games has increased. FWIW, I do not see a trend that teams that push their undefeated record the farthest do better in the NCAAs. It is interesting that teams entering the NCAAs undefeated averaged 5.67 points, which would take them, on average to the runner-up position. The other 32 teams, (excluding Kentucky ’54 and NC State ’73 who stayed home), totaled 136 points, 4.25, suggesting that Jim Boeheim’s theory that a team that entered the tournament undefeated would have an edge due to their confidence level may be true. But in the meantime it doesn’t appear that it really matters when our first loss comes. It’s what happens afterwards that really matters.
