The 1982 Georgetown Hoyas were a program steadily on the rise in a Big East Conference that was much the same. With big John Thompson, the 6’10” head coach, patrolling the sidelines, the Hoyas made a regional final in the 1980 NCAA Tournament before losing by one point to Iowa. Then Thompson made a huge splash when he signed stud freshman center, 7’0” Patrick Ewing, the nation’s most coveted recruit. The stage was set for great things.
Florida was the king of college sports, having won the national title in both basketball and football in 2006 and the 2007 Florida basketball team was primed to keep the good times rolling in Gainesville.
Soon afterward, Florida fans got even better news—there would be no early departures for the NBA. The five starters were all coming back to do it again and they would do exactly that. 2006 Florida basketball marked the first half of a repeat title run that has been done only twice since the end of the John Wooden dynasty at UCLA.
DePaul University has had a long history playing basketball and most of it has been away from the national spotlight. The most notable exception to that came in the late 1970s and early 1980s under the coaching of Ray Meyer, and the high point was the 1979 DePaul basketball edition that got Coach Meyer to the Final Four.
Majerus had every reason to think he could put together a winning team in the post-Van Horn era. The 1998 Utah basketball edition had a nice guard-forward combo of his own with Andre Miller and Michael Doleac, each of whom would enjoy long careers at the next level (Miller’s still playing with the Washington Wizards at this writing).
The 1991 Duke Blue Devils were a program that had arrived as a national power under head coach Mike Krzyzewski, but the last line on the resume remained incomplete. Duke reached the Final Four four of the previous five years, but had missed the ring each time, twice in the championship game. The previous year they’d taken the worst beating ever administered in an NCAA final, as UNLV hammered them 103-73.
Though UNC was the #1 team in the nation, the Hoyas were the hot team, playing stifling defense. None of their tournament opponents had scored more than 50 points and they were anchored in the middle by freshman center Patrick Ewing, shotblocker extraordinaire. The close friendship of Smith and Georgetown coach John Thompson was a big part of the storyline and it was a superb championship game matchup for CBS in its first year of televising the tournament, a run that has gone on uninterrupted to this day.
The 1987 Indiana basketball team was looking to redeem themselves. 1986 had ended with March disappointment—they’d been upset by Cleveland State in the first round of the NCAA Tournament—but they were also looking to avoid a dubious historical distinction. The senior class, led by sharpshooter Steve Alford, had never won a Big Ten championship and no team in the Bob Knight era had ever graduated without winning at least one conference title.
What happened on Monday night in Lexington was nothing short of electric. Villanova played the game of its life.
The Virginia basketball program was at the forefront of the national stage—not just for college basketball, but sports overall, when 7’4” center Ralph Sampson played there from 1980-83. Sampson was considered one of the best to ever play the game and all eyes were on him to see if this freak of nature could lead Virginia to a national title. The Cavaliers never got to that lofty goal—indeed March disappointments were to become routine. But the 1981 NCAA Tournament at least saw Sampson’s Cavs reach the Final Four.
The 1983 NCAA Tournament is remembered for the miracle championship ride of Jim Valvano and the North Carolina State Wolfpack, who needed to win their conference tournament just to make it to March Madness and then pulled off two memorable upsets (Virginia and Houston) to win the national title. What’s forgotten is that there was another team at the Final Four that year on a similar ride and it was the 1983 Georgia basketball team.
When you hear about the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers it can seem as though their perfect season was almost a fait accompli, coming off the disappointment in 1975. The record shows the reality as quite different. This was a team that was beatable and in repeated situations where they might have lost, right up to the bitter end.