History of Final Four teams | Syracusefan.com
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History of Final Four teams

SWC75

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Now that we are going to our 5th Final Four, I wondered how many schools had been to that many. I decided to total up Final Four appearances. The year is designated by the last two digits. This will be “13”, for example. There wasn’t really a “Final Four” per say until 1951. Before that there were just eastern and western regionals and the winners met for the title. But I’ll include the final four teams from when the tournament began in 1939. The school is listed under it’s current name, ( Oklahoma A&M = Oklahoma State, Texas Western = UTEP etc. )

Arizona 88, 94, 97, 01
Arkansas 41, 45, 78, 90, 94, 95
Baylor 48, 50
Bradley 50, 54
Butler 10, 11
California 46, 59, 60
CCNY 47, 50
Charlotte 77
Cincinnati 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 92
Colorado 42, 55
Connecticut 99, 04, 09, 11
Dartmouth 42, 44
Dayton 67
DePaul 43, 79
Drake 69
Duke 63, 64, 66, 78, 86, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 94, 99, 01, 04, 10
Duquesne 40
Florida 94, 00, 06, 07
Florida St. 72
Geroge Mason 06
Georgetown 43, 82, 84, 85, 07
Georgia 83
Georgia Tech 90, 04
Holy Cross 47, 48
Houston 67, 68, 82, 83, 84
Illinois 49, 51, 52, 89, 05
Indiana 40, 53, 73, 78, 81, 87, 92, 02
Indiana St. 79
Iowa 55, 56, 80
Iowa State 44
Jacksonville 70
Kansas 40, 52, 53, 57, 71, 74, 86, 88, 91, 93, 02, 03, 08, 12
Kansas State 48, 51, 58, 64
Kentucky 42, 48, 49, 51, 58, 66, 75, 78, 84, 93, 96, 97, 98, 11, 12
LaSalle 54, 55
Louisiana St. 53, 81, 86, 06
Louisville 59, 72, 75, 80, 82, 83, 86, 05, 12, 13
Loyola (Chic) 63
Marquette 74, 77, 03
Maryland 01, 02
Massachusetts 96
Memphis 73, 85, 08
Michigan 64, 65, 78, 89, 92, 93, 13
Michigan St. 57, 79, 98, 00, 01, 05, 09, 10
Minnesota 97
Mississippi St. 96
New Mexico St. 70
North Carolina 46, 57, 67, 68, 69, 72, 77, 81, 82, 91, 93, 95, 97, 98, 00, 05, 08, 09
North Carolina St. 50, 74, 83
Notre Dame 78
NYU 45, 60
Ohio State 39, 44, 45, 46, 60, 61, 62, 68, 99, 07, 12
Oklahoma 39, 47, 88, 02
Oklahoma State 45, 46, 49, 51, 95, 04
Oregon 39 (The original champ has never returned to the Final Four)
Oregon St. 49, 63
Penn State 54
Pennsylvania 79
Pittsburgh 41
Princeton 65
Providence 73, 87
Purdue 69, 80
Rutgers 76
San Francisco 55, 56, 57
Santa Clara 52
Seattle 58
Seton Hall 89
So. California 40, 54
So. Methodist 56
Stanford 42, 98
St. Bonaventure 70
St. John’s 52, 85
St. Joseph’s 61
Syracuse 75, 87, 96, 03, 13
Temple 56, 58
Texas 43, 47, 03
UCLA 62, 64, 65, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 80, 95, 06, 07, 08
UNLV 77, 87, 90, 91
UTEP 66 (as Texas Western)
Utah 44, 61, 66, 98
Villanova 39, 71, 85, 09
Virginia 81, 84
Virginia Commonwealth 11
Wake Forest 62
Washington 53
Washington St. 41
Western Kentucky 71
West Virginia 59, 10
Wichita St. 65, 13
Wisconsin 41, 00
Wyoming 42

Teams with 5 or more Final Fours:

North Carolina and UCLA 18
Duke and Kentucky 15
Kansas 14
Ohio State 11
Louisville 10
Indiana and Michigan State 8
Michigan 7
Arkansas, Cincinnati and Oklahoma State 6
Georgetown, Houston, Illinois and Syracuse 5

Two of those schools have never won the championship. Can you name them?
 
Was going to guess Cincinnati and Oklahoma St, but did some research.
Surprisingly, it's Illinois and Houston.
 
Houston never won an NCAA with Olajuwon?

Pour Guy Lewis. Two Final Fours with Elvin Hayes and three with Hakeem Olajuwon and a goose-egg. He should never have slowed it down vs. NC State, (which he did with about a 10 point lead because he was concerned about the impact of the altitude on his players).
 
I, myself, think F4s before 1951 when the field was only 8 teams 1939-1950 shouldn't count. This was also the time period when the NIT was an equal to the NCAAs.

Stealing your data using 1951 and beyond this is what it would show.

Arizona 88, 94, 97, 01
Arkansas 78, 90, 94, 95
Bradley 54
Butler 10, 11
California 59, 60
Charlotte 77
Cincinnati 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 92
Colorado 55
Connecticut 99, 04, 09, 11
Dayton 67
DePaul 79
Drake 69
Duke 63, 64, 66, 78, 86, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 94, 99, 01, 04, 10
Florida 94, 00, 06, 07
Florida St. 72
Geroge Mason 06
Georgetown 82, 84, 85, 07
Georgia 83
Georgia Tech 90, 04
Houston 67, 68, 82, 83, 84
Illinois 51, 52, 89, 05
Indiana 53, 73, 78, 81, 87, 92, 02
Indiana St. 79
Iowa 55, 56, 80
Jacksonville 70
Kansas 52, 53, 57, 71, 74, 86, 88, 91, 93, 02, 03, 08, 12
Kansas State 51, 58, 64
Kentucky 51, 58, 66, 75, 78, 84, 93, 96, 97, 98, 11, 12
LaSalle 54, 55
Louisiana St. 53, 81, 86, 06
Louisville 59, 72, 75, 80, 82, 83, 86, 05, 12, 13
Loyola (Chic) 63
Marquette 74, 77, 03
Maryland 01, 02
Massachusetts 96
Memphis 73, 85, 08
Michigan 64, 65, 78, 89, 92, 93, 13
Michigan St. 57, 79, 98, 00, 01, 05, 09, 10
Minnesota 97
Mississippi St. 96
New Mexico St. 70
North Carolina 57, 67, 68, 69, 72, 77, 81, 82, 91, 93, 95, 97, 98, 00, 05, 08, 09
North Carolina St. 74, 83
Notre Dame 78
NYU 60
Ohio State 60, 61, 62, 68, 99, 07, 12
Oklahoma 88, 02
Oklahoma State 51, 95, 04
Oregon St. 63
Penn State 54
Pennsylvania 79
Princeton 65
Providence 73, 87
Purdue 69, 80
Rutgers 76
San Francisco 55, 56, 57
Santa Clara 52
Seattle 58
Seton Hall 89
So. California 54
So. Methodist 56
Stanford 98
St. Bonaventure 70
St. John’s 52, 85
St. Joseph’s 61
Syracuse 75, 87, 96, 03, 13
Temple 56, 58
Texas 03
UCLA 62, 64, 65, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 80, 95, 06, 07, 08
UNLV 77, 87, 90, 91
UTEP 66 (as Texas Western)
Utah 61, 66, 98
Villanova 71, 85, 09
Virginia 81, 84
Virginia Commonwealth 11
Wake Forest 62
Washington 53
Western Kentucky 71
West Virginia 59, 10
Wichita St. 65, 13
Wisconsin 00

Teams with 4 or more Final Fours since 1953:

UCLA 18
UNC 17
Duke 15
Kansas 13
Kentucky 12
Louisville 10
Michigan State 8
Indiana, Michigan and Ohio State 7
Cincinnati 6
Houston and Syracuse 5
Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Georgetown, Illinois, LSU, and UNLV 4

None of the above is meant to negate the NCs won during that time period, I just think it is wrong to include F4s that required only 1 win (over a less than "best of the best" field).

I also think the above is more in line with how we tend to view the Top 25 programs of all-time, although not necessarily in F4 number order.

Cheers,
Neil
 
Omniorange just didn't want Pittsburgh to be on the list. ;)

I did some additional research on the subject of "the Final Four" and the relative prestige of the NCAA and NIT tournaments in the early years of both tournaments.

I was wrong about when the final four became the "Final Four". it was an 8 team tournament through 1950 and went to 16 teams in 1951. I'd read that the first time the last four teams congregated in one location was the early 50's so I assumed that was it. But actually that first occurred in 1952. There were still only two regional, East and West, until 1956, when they changed it to four regionals. So from 1952-1955, there was no "championship game" for the two regionals. The two teams that made it that far just went on to the national semi-finals. I would still maintain that the last four teams are a "Final Four", regardless of where the games were played.

There were three games played during World War II between the NCAA and NIT champions for the benefit of the Red Corss. The NCAA champion won all of them: Wyoming beat St. John's 52-47 in 1943, Utan beat St. John's 43-36 in 1944 and Oklahoma A&M (State) beat DePaul 52-44 in 1945. Those were "exhibition" games but I assume both teams wanted to win and thus played hard. The latter game was a much bally-hooed confrontation between the games first to really good big men, A&M's Bob Kurland and DePauls George Mikan.

Patrick Premo, a professor of accounting and Phil Porretta, a computer programmer and both basketball fans, combined forces to create the Premo-Poretta Poll, which attempted to fill in the void of polls before the first AP basketball poll, which started in 1949. They covered 1901-1948. In 1939, the year of the first NCAA tournament, (the NIT had begun the previous year). Here are their evaluations:

1939: Long Island won the NIT and PP ranked them #1. Loyola of Chicago and Bradley, who also went to the NIT, were #2-3 and the NCAA champions Oregon was #4.

1940: Indiana, the NCAA champion, was #1. USC was #2 and lost in the NCAAs. Colorado, the NIT champion was #3.

1941: Long Island again won the NIT, beating Loyola in a battled of unbeaten teams in the finals and was voted #1. You could say there has been a game between unbeaten teams for the national championship but it was in the NIT. Wisconsin won the NCAA and was ranked #2.

1942 NCAA champion Stanford was #1, NIT champ West Virginia #6! Ranked ahead of the Mountaineers were NCAA teams Colorado, Rice and Dartmouth and Long Island, who went to the NIT.

1943 #1 Illinois stayed home while #2 Wyoming won the NCAAs. #3 Notre Dame also stayed home. #4 St. Johns won the NIT.

1944 #1 Army, 15-0 stayed home. #2 Utah was the NCAA champion. #6 St. John's won the NIT. Ranked ahead of them Dartmouth, the NCAA runner-up and Kentucky and DePaul, both of whom lost in the NIT.

1945 #1 Iowa stayed home. Oklahoma A&M, the NCAA champ and DePaul who won the NIT were #2-3.

1946 Oklahoma A&M was #1 and the NCAA champions. Kentucky was #2 and the NIT champion.

1947 Kentucky was #1 despite losing in the NIT finals to #4 Utah#2 Holy Cross won the NCAAs and #3 Texas lost in the NCAAs.

1948 NCAA champions Kentucky was #1, NIT champion St. Louis #2.

Premo-Poretta stopped doing their poll at that time. In 1949 Kentucky ranked #1 and Oklahoma A&M #2 in the final poll, which was done before the tournament. They met for the NCAA title, Kentucky winning. NIT champion San Francisco was #8. In 1950 both tournaments were held in MSG #1 Bradley was in both and lost in the finals to unranked CCNY in each in a tournament and year destroyed by the point-shaving scandals. In 1951#1 Kentucky won the NCAA championship BYU, ranked #11 by the writers and #10 by the coaches, won the NIT.

Premo and Poretta, working long after the NCAA had clearly established supremacy over the NIT, may have been influenced by that but they did rate the NIT champ over the NCAA champ twice and rated some teams that lost in the NIT over teams that lost in the NCAAs. Still, the overall picture they present, along with the results of the Red Cross games suggest that the supposed supremacy of the NIT in the early years is a myth and that the NCAA tournament had established itself as the real national championship tournament from early on.
 
Now that we are going to our 5th Final Four, I wondered how many schools had been to that many. I decided to total up Final Four appearances. The year is designated by the last two digits. This will be “13”, for example. There wasn’t really a “Final Four” per say until 1951. Before that there were just eastern and western regionals and the winners met for the title. But I’ll include the final four teams from when the tournament began in 1939. The school is listed under it’s current name, ( Oklahoma A&M = Oklahoma State, Texas Western = UTEP etc. )

Arizona 88, 94, 97, 01
Arkansas 41, 45, 78, 90, 94, 95
Baylor 48, 50
Bradley 50, 54
Butler 10, 11
California 46, 59, 60
CCNY 47, 50
Charlotte 77
Cincinnati 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 92
Colorado 42, 55
Connecticut 99, 04, 09, 11
Dartmouth 42, 44
Dayton 67
DePaul 43, 79
Drake 69
Duke 63, 64, 66, 78, 86, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 94, 99, 01, 04, 10
Duquesne 40
Florida 94, 00, 06, 07
Florida St. 72
Geroge Mason 06
Georgetown 43, 82, 84, 85, 07
Georgia 83
Georgia Tech 90, 04
Holy Cross 47, 48
Houston 67, 68, 82, 83, 84
Illinois 49, 51, 52, 89, 05
Indiana 40, 53, 73, 78, 81, 87, 92, 02
Indiana St. 79
Iowa 55, 56, 80
Iowa State 44
Jacksonville 70
Kansas 40, 52, 53, 57, 71, 74, 86, 88, 91, 93, 02, 03, 08, 12
Kansas State 48, 51, 58, 64
Kentucky 42, 48, 49, 51, 58, 66, 75, 78, 84, 93, 96, 97, 98, 11, 12
LaSalle 54, 55
Louisiana St. 53, 81, 86, 06
Louisville 59, 72, 75, 80, 82, 83, 86, 05, 12, 13
Loyola (Chic) 63
Marquette 74, 77, 03
Maryland 01, 02
Massachusetts 96
Memphis 73, 85, 08
Michigan 64, 65, 78, 89, 92, 93, 13
Michigan St. 57, 79, 98, 00, 01, 05, 09, 10
Minnesota 97
Mississippi St. 96
New Mexico St. 70
North Carolina 46, 57, 67, 68, 69, 72, 77, 81, 82, 91, 93, 95, 97, 98, 00, 05, 08, 09
North Carolina St. 50, 74, 83
Notre Dame 78
NYU 45, 60
Ohio State 39, 44, 45, 46, 60, 61, 62, 68, 99, 07, 12
Oklahoma 39, 47, 88, 02
Oklahoma State 45, 46, 49, 51, 95, 04
Oregon 39 (The original champ has never returned to the Final Four)
Oregon St. 49, 63
Penn State 54
Pennsylvania 79
Pittsburgh 41
Princeton 65
Providence 73, 87
Purdue 69, 80
Rutgers 76
San Francisco 55, 56, 57
Santa Clara 52
Seattle 58
Seton Hall 89
So. California 40, 54
So. Methodist 56
Stanford 42, 98
St. Bonaventure 70
St. John’s 52, 85
St. Joseph’s 61
Syracuse 75, 87, 96, 03, 13
Temple 56, 58
Texas 43, 47, 03
UCLA 62, 64, 65, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 80, 95, 06, 07, 08
UNLV 77, 87, 90, 91
UTEP 66 (as Texas Western)
Utah 44, 61, 66, 98
Villanova 39, 71, 85, 09
Virginia 81, 84
Virginia Commonwealth 11
Wake Forest 62
Washington 53
Washington St. 41
Western Kentucky 71
West Virginia 59, 10
Wichita St. 65, 13
Wisconsin 41, 00
Wyoming 42

Teams with 5 or more Final Fours:

North Carolina and UCLA 18
Duke and Kentucky 15
Kansas 14
Ohio State 11
Louisville 10
Indiana and Michigan State 8
Michigan 7
Arkansas, Cincinnati and Oklahoma State 6
Georgetown, Houston, Illinois and Syracuse 5

Two of those schools have never won the championship. Can you name them?
Nice research as always SWC.

With this Final Four berth, Syracuse has been in a Final Four in each of the past 5 decades. I was curious what other schools can also say that. Based on the research you have done, it is easy to determine this.

The answer is Duke and Kansas (Duke's streak actually goes back to the 1960s). UNC has a streak going back to the 1940s but they will need to make a Final Four this decade to join this exclusive club.

The thing that sets Syracuse apart from a lot of programs is sustained excellence. SU does really well in categories like all time wins, all time winning percentage, consecutive winning seasons, etc.
 
Nice research as always SWC.

With this Final Four berth, Syracuse has been in a Final Four in each of the past 5 decades. I was curious what other schools can also say that. Based on the research you have done, it is easy to determine this.

The answer is Duke and Kansas (Duke's streak actually goes back to the 1960s). UNC has a streak going back to the 1940s but they will need to make a Final Four this decade to join this exclusive club.

The thing that sets Syracuse apart from a lot of programs is sustained excellence. SU does really well in categories like all time wins, all time winning percentage, consecutive winning seasons, etc.

We now have 43 straight winning seasons, the longest streak in the country. The record is 50 by UCLA.
 
Also, regarding final four history only once in the last 28 years has a 4 seed cut down the nets. Arizona 1997.
 

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