Who won the men's NCAA Tournament the year you were born?

The Oregon Ducks, led by future Hall of Fame coach Howard Hobson (pictured to the right of former Oklahoma A&M coach Henry Iba), won the first NCAA Championship Tournament by a score of 46-33. At the time, the competition was run by the National Association of Basketball Coaches and included only eight teams. Harold Olsen’s Ohio State Buckeyes were the losing team, but this certainly wasn’t the last anyone would hear from them.

The Indiana Hoosiers defeated Kansas by a score of 60-42, and that 18-point margin of victory would stand as the largest differential for the next 20 years. Indiana was led by alumnus Branch McCracken, who would win two NCAA basketball championships throughout his coaching career and was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1960 as a player.

After going 17-3 in the regular season, the Wisconsin Badgers ended up defeating Washington State (who owned a 24-5 record) in the NCAA Championship by a score of 39-34. Sophomore John Kotz earned the 1941 tournament’s Most Outstanding Player Award, which he followed up with All-American honors in the 1942 and 1943 seasons.

In a battle of brainy ballers, the Stanford Cardinal defeated the Dartmouth Big Green in the 1941 championship, 52-38. The team was led by coach and former All-American Everett Dean, who is the only coach named to both the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame and the College Baseball Hall of Fame.

1943 marked the second year in a row that the NCAA Championship’s winning coach had the first name Everett, except that year is was Everett Shelton of the Wyoming Cowboys. Shelton’s team defeated Georgetown 46-34 in the first championship appearance by both teams, as well as the first one held at the old Madison Square Garden in New York City. In all, Shelton led the Cowboys to eight conference championships and eight NCAA Tournament appearances but fell out of favor in his later years when the team’s performance crumbled.

Although Dartmouth made its second NCAA Championship appearance in three years in 1944, it failed to win once again after the Utah Utes defeated the Big Green in overtime by a score of 42-40. It was the first championship to go into OT and marked the first year that a team (Utah) played in both the NCAA and NIT Tournaments in a single season. At the time, the NIT was actually the more prestigious of the two, and Utah only received an invitation to play in the NCAA Tournament after Arkansas dropped out when a Razorbacks coach and two players were tragically killed in an automobile accident.

In 1945, Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State) defeated NYU in the NCAA Championship, 49-45. As you’ll soon find out, it wasn’t the last win for A&M, but it did mark the first and last appearance by NYU in the big game. Even worse, the team disbanded altogether in 1971 during a budget crisis, and when it reformed in 1983, the NYU Violets were only granted Division III status.

In a repeat of the previous year, Oklahoma A&M and coach Henry Iba once again claimed victory in the NCAA Tournament in 1946, this time besting the North Carolina Tar Heels in their first-ever championship game. It would be over a decade until UNC returned to the championship, but don’t worry, the Heels wound up alright in the end.

1947 marked the third year in a row that an Oklahoma team made the big game, except this time it was the Oklahoma Sooners. They dropped the game to Holy Cross, 58-47. After averaging 21 points in three games, George Kaftan was named Most Outstanding Player, and he went on to play for the Boston Celtics, New York Knicks and Baltimore Bullets after being selected in the second round of the 1949 Basketball Association of America Draft. NBA legend Bob Cousy also played on this team as a freshman.

Kentucky is now a March Madness regular, but the Wildcats didn’t make their first championship game until 1948, the year they beat Baylor 58-42 under the brilliant leadership of Adolph Rupp, a Hall of Fame coach who won 876 games.

Adolph Rupp and the Kentucky Wildcats were back in championship game again, and although the score of this one was a bit closer, they still defeated Oklahoma A&M handily 46-36. Alex Groza, a future NBA All-Star, won Most Outstanding Player for the second consecutive year. However, Groza’s time in the pros would be brief, as he was implicated in a point-shaving scandal from back in his college days and was subsequently banned from the league for life.

The City College of New York’s basketball team holds two interesting distinctions for the 1949-50 season. That year, it became the first school to win both the NCAA Tournament (beating Bradley 71-68) and NIT in the same season. However, it was discovered the following season that numerous CCNY Beavers also were involved in the aforementioned point-shaving scandal. This revelation, along with several other irregularities, led to CCNY de-emphasizing its basketball team and eventually dropping down to the Division III level.

Kentucky was back on top for the third time in four years, again with Adolph Rupp at the helm, only this time the Wildcats beat Kansas State for the win by a margin of 68-58. This was the first year the NCAA featured a 16-team tournament and the first year the championship game was held in Minneapolis.

Although Kansas previous made it to the championship game (back in 1940, as you may recall), this was the program's first win, defeating St. John’s 80-63. Obviously all the players were different this time around, but the coach was still the great Phog Allen, who made it into the Hall of Fame’s inaugural class in 1959. The Allen Fieldhouse, where the Jayhawks still play to this day, was named in his honor.

In a rematch of the 1940 championship game, Branch McCracken’s Indiana Hoosiers were once again pitted against Phog Allen’s Kansas Jayhawks, and once again Indiana won. This time, however, the score was much closer, with the Hoosiers narrowly squeaking out a 69-68 victory. In yet another expansion, the 1953 tournament featured 22 teams.

La Salle’s first NCAA Championship appearance would also prove to be the school's first and only win as the Explorers crushed Bradley 92-76 in 1954. Interestingly, this was the year Kentucky posted a 25-0 record — however, due to the point-shaving scandal the previous year, Adolph Rupp [pictured] decided his team would sit out the tournament in 1954, which had expanded to include 24 teams.

On the shoulders of a youngster named Bill Russell, the University of San Francisco Dons beat La Salle in the NCAA Championship Game by a score of 77-63. Predictably, Russell was named the Most Outstanding Player, but the rest of his team wasn’t too shabby either. In the 1955 regular season, San Francisco posted a record of 28-1.

In Bill Russell’s last year of college before getting drafted into the NBA, he and San Francisco once again won it all, defeating the Iowa Hawkeyes 83-71 in the championship game. Interestingly, the Most Outstanding Player of the 1956 tournament didn’t come from San Francisco or Iowa. It was instead won by Hal Lear of Temple.

North Carolina made it to the NCAA Championship for the second time in the school’s history in 1957, except this time the Heels managed to secure a victory by beating Kansas. It wasn’t easy though, as the final score of the final game was 54-53, and it took three overtimes to determine a winner. Although UNC posted a 31-0 record in the regular season, Kansas was actually the favorite thanks to a young phenom named Wilt Chamberlain.

You know the drill by now: Kentucky won, Adolph Rupp coached the team. The only difference was that this 84-72 victory came against the Seattle University Redhawks (in their first championship appearance), and the final game was played in Louisville, Ky., (the city’s first time hosting the event).

The 1959 NCAA Championship involved two teams that had never previously made it this far in the tournament, California and West Virginia, with the former beating the latter, 71-70. California’s victorious coach was Pete Newell, who went on to lead the U.S. basketball team to a gold medal at the 1960 Summer Olympics the following year. Coincidentally, Newell was also a college classmate of Phil Woolpert, the basketball coach who led San Francisco to two consecutive championship wins only a few years prior.

Pete Newell and his California Golden Bears returned to the championship game the following year but were felled by the Ohio State Buckeyes in a lopsided affair that ended 75-55. In all, 25 teams competed in the tournament in 1960, and Ohio State’s Jerry Lucas (future NBA Rookie of the Year, champion and seven-time All-Star) was named the Most Outstanding Player.

Ohio State’s attempt at a repeat was cut short in an overtime nail-biter against the Cincinnati Bearcats, which ended with a score of 70-65. In a bit of random trivia, 1961 was the last time a NCAA Division I Tournament game went to four overtimes, as was the case with St. Joseph’s and Utah in the third-place game. However, St. Joseph’s victory was later vacated due to a gambling scandal.

In a rematch of the previous year’s championship, coach Ed Jucker’s Cincinnati Bearcats once again defeated Fred Taylor’s Ohio State team, this time by a score of 71-59. Paul Hogue, who briefly played in the NBA for the New York Knicks and Baltimore Bullets, was named Most Outstanding Player.

The Loyola Ramblers stopped Cincinnati from pulling off a three-peat when they beat the Bearcats in overtime, 60-58. The 1963 final was also notable for being the first time black players made up the majority of the starters in a championship game when Loyola started four and Cincinnati started three.

Fair warning: If you don’t like the UCLA Bruins, you might want to skip the next decade. Coach John Wooden’s team made its first championship appearance in 1964 and won after defeating Duke, 98-83. Future NBA star and UCLA coach Walt Hazzard was named the Most Outstanding Player of the tournament, and he went on to win an NBA title with the Los Angeles Lakers later that year.

On the heels of a 28-2 season, UCLA won again in 1965, this time against the University of Michigan Wolverines. The Bruins won 91-80, which, if you look at the scores of their other championship wins, was actually one of the closer games. Despite not competing in the final, Princeton’s Bill Bradley was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player.

Ever see the 2006 sports drama “Glory Road”? That film was based on the 1966 NCAA Champion Texas Western basketball team, who beat Adolph Rupp’s Kentucky Wildcats in a 72-65 affair. In this game, Texas Western coach Don Haskins started five black players for the first time in NCAA Championship history. Kentucky, on the other side of the court, had no black players.

The Dayton Flyers made their first championship appearance in 1967, but they were bulldozed by UCLA, who won 79-64. The Most Outstanding Player was Lew Alcindor, who later changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. You may have heard of him.

1968 marked legendary North Carolina coach Dean Smith’s first championship appearance, which his team dropped to UCLA in a landslide, 78-55. On their way to the top, the Bruins had to beat the Houston Cougars in a semifinal, which was a rematch of a game only two months before that snapped UCLA’s 47-game winning streak. The Bruins were out to avenge that loss and avenge it they did, stomping out the Cougars to the tune of 101-69.

Not only was 1969 the third win in a row for UCLA and coach John Wooden, it was also the third Most Outstanding Player in a row for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Once again, it wasn’t even close. The Bruins beat the Purdue Boilermakers 92-72, and 37 of those points belonged to Abdul-Jabbar.

Who was the victim this year? That would be the Jacksonville University Dolphins, who dropped the final to UCLA, 80-69. The Bruins showed they didn’t need Lew Alcindor/Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to win, with young phenom Sidney Wicks taking over where his predecessor left off. Although this was actually Wicks’ second championship, it was his first Most Outstanding Player award.

Compared to the previous few years, Villanova actually gave UCLA a run for its money, as the latter only won by a margin of 68-62. UCLA coach John Wooden switched the Bruins to a four-corner stall offense halfway through the game to both bring Villanova out of its zone and make the point that the NCAA needed a shot clock. However, Villanova responded by going man-to-man on defense, and Wooden’s plan almost backfired. UCLA had to make five of its last six free throws to seal the win.

In an even closer game than the previous year, the Florida State Seminoles only lost to UCLA by a score of 81-76. UCLA’s Bill Walton was named Most Outstanding Player of the tournament, as well as National College Player of the Year. Elsewhere in the big dance, the University of Southwestern Louisiana made the tourney in its first year of eligibility, but the accomplishment was later expunged due to major infractions committed by the basketball program.

Bill Walton, John Wooden and the UCLA Bruins finished on top once again in 1973, defeating Gene Bartow’s Memphis State team, 87-66. This was the Bruins’ seventh consecutive win and Walton’s second Most Outstanding Player award. This was also the year that Indiana coach Bobby Knight disapproved of the arena floor in St. Louis and had flooring shipped and installed from his team’s home court in Indiana.

Alas, UCLA’s reign of terror finally ended in 1974. The Bruins settled for third place while North Carolina State and Marquette battled for the championship, which ended in a 76-64 win for the N.C. State Wolfpack. David Thompson, who later had an epic Hall of Fame NBA career, was named the Most Outstanding Player of the tournament.

Thought we were done with UCLA? Not yet. The Bruins were back to nab the championship once again in 1975 after besting the Kentucky Wildcats, 92-85. This was the first NCAA Tournament to include more than one team per conference, and thus the number of teams invited to the big dance expanded to 32.

Not only did Bobby Knight’s Indiana team win the NCAA Championship over Michigan (by a score of 86-68) in 1976, but it also won the whole darn season. The Hoosiers ended their year with a 33-0 record and are the last team to go undefeated through an entire season. Since 1976 was America’s bicentennial, the NCAA Championship, NBA All-Star Game, NHL All-Star Game and MLB All-Star Game were all played in Philadelphia that year.

After losing to UCLA in 1968, UNC coach Dean Smith was still seeking his first NCAA Championship in 1977, but he lost again, this time to Al McGuire-led Marquette, 67-59. McGuire announced his intention to retire midway through the season, making this a storybook ending to his Hall of Fame coaching career.

1978 marked Kentucky’s fifth NCAA Championship win and the first victory by a Wildcat team not led by Adolph Rupp. Instead, Kentucky was coached by Joe B. Hall in the 94-88 win over Duke. This was the first year a seeding system was used in the tournament, and its instatement wasn’t without controversy. Former Marquette coach Al McGuire criticized the fact that the Golden Eagles would have to face a strong Kentucky team in the second round after being given a seemingly simple first-round matchup against Miami University (Ohio). However, the point ended up being moot as Miami actually upset Marquette in that game, 84-81.

On the shoulders of a magical talent named Earvin Johnson, Michigan State won the 1979 NCAA Championship. In order to nab the victory, the Spartans had to defeat a tough Indiana State team led by Larry Bird, which they did by a score of 75-64. Magic Johnson was named the Most Outstanding Player of the tournament.

Although the NCAA Final had been played in Louisville six times by 1980, the city’s home team had yet to appear in a championship game until 1980, when it beat UCLA (then led by Larry Brown), 59-54. After expanding to 40 teams the previous year, the number of contenders ballooned again in 1980 to include a record 48 different schools.

Dean Smith and the Tar Heels would have to wait another year for their first NCAA Championship with the legendary coach, as North Carolina was no match for Bobby Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers in 1981, losing 63-50 in the final. Indiana’s Isiah Thomas won Most Outstanding Player in the last tournament televised on NBC before the big switch to CBS in 1982.

The Tar Heels captured their second NCAA Championship in 1982 and their first under Dean Smith. The victims were John Thompson’s Georgetown Hoyas, who were narrowly edged out by UNC to the tune of 63-62. The go-ahead basket was scored with 15 seconds left in the game by freshman Michael Jordan.

In a tournament that featured 52 teams, North Carolina State finished on top after beating the Houston Cougars in a 54-52 nailbiter. Although future NBA legend Hakeem Olajuwon won Most Outstanding Player, the game’s most memorable moment came when Lorenzo Charles ended it all with a buzzer-beating dunk followed by an on-court celebration by coach Jimmy Valvano.

After losing to UNC only two years prior, Georgetown finally got its moment on top in 1984 after beating the Houston Cougars, 84-75. Patrick Ewing of the Hoyas was named the Most Outstanding Player, and he was coached by John Thompson, the first black head coach to lead a team to any NCAA Division I title.

Georgetown’s hopes of a repeat were dashed when Villanova won a 66-64 game that is often referred to as one of the biggest upsets in NCAA basketball history. The Rollie Massimino-coached Wildcats were only an eight seed when they knocked off the heavily favored, top-seeded Hoyas by making a remarkable 78 percent of their field goals in the game — the highest in Final Four history. This was also the first tournament to feature 64 teams.

Denny Crum’s Louisville team returned to the NCAA Championship for the second time in seven years and captured a second school title by beating Duke, 72-69, in Mike Krzyzewski’s first appearance in a title game. This was the first tournament to feature a shot clock, which was originally set at 45 seconds before being shortened to 35 in 1994.

Bobby Knight’s Hoosiers won again in 1987, but this time they had to knock off a Jim Boeheim-coached Syracuse team for the championship. Keith Smart (now assistant coach of the Memphis Grizzlies) made the game-winning shot to give Indiana a 74-73 win, and he was rewarded with Most Outstanding Player honors.

After failing to win the NCAA Championship Game with UCLA back in 1980, Larry Brown briefly coached the New Jersey Nets before returning to college ball with Kansas in 1983. Five years later, Brown led the team to victory over top-seeded Oklahoma, 83-79. Danny Manning of the six-seeded Jayhawks was named Most Outstanding Player.

Although the Michigan Wolverines previously made the NCAA Championship twice, their run was halted on both occasions by the powerhouse teams of UCLA and Indiana. Even in 1989 when Michigan finally won, it only did so via a one-point margin over Seton Hall in overtime. After setting a tournament record with 184 points in six games, Michigan’s Glen Rice was named the Most Outstanding Player.

Ever wonder what was the largest margin of victory in NCAA Championship history? That distinction goes to UNLV for its 103-73 win over Duke in 1990. Jerry Tarkanian (known for nervously chewing on towels during games) was the winning coach, with Anderson Hunt getting the Most Outstanding Player nod. This year was also a somber one, however, as Loyola Marymount star forward Hank Gathers collapsed and died on the court during the semifinals of the West Coast Conference Tournament due to a heart condition.

When Mike Krzyzewski won his first NCAA Championship in 1991, he did so against Roy Williams, a fellow coach with whom he would eventually become very familiar in the heated Duke-UNC rivalry. However, at the time, Williams was with the Kansas Jayhawks, who dropped the final to Duke by a score of 72-65. On the way to the top, Coach K also knocked out Williams’ mentor, Dean Smith, and his Tar Heels in the semifinals.

After winning it all in 1989, Steve Fisher’s Michigan Wolverines were back in the big game again in 1992, but they dropped the affair to a repeating Duke, 71-51. The most memorable part of Duke’s run was a 104-103 win against Kentucky in which Grant Hill and Christian Laettner combined on a full-court pass and a jumper to seal the victory as time expired in what Sports Illustrated deemed the greatest college basketball game of all time.

Michigan was back in the final again but once again lost, this time to Duke’s rival, UNC. Dean Smith was at the helm for the 77-71 win, which saw Michigan shooting itself in the foot when Chris Webber tried to call a timeout with no timeouts remaining in the last few seconds of the game, resulting in a technical foul. Further complicating matters, it was later discovered that Webber and three teammates had been taking under-the-table payments from a university booster, and the team was forced to vacate its entire 1992-93 season.

The Arkansas Razorbacks held off the Duke Blue Devils for a 76-72 win in the 1994 NCAA Championship, the first tournament win ever for Arkansas. Corliss Williamson, now an assistant coach with the Orlando Magic, was named Most Outstanding Player, and President (and former Arkansas governor) Bill Clinton was in attendance for the Final Four.

Twenty years after the school's last NCAA Championship win, UCLA was on top again after a 89-78 win over the defending champion Arkansas Razorbacks. The game was played at Seattle’s Kingdome and marked the last time to date that a final was held in a Western state. However, this steak will end at 22 years when the 2017 NCAA Championship is played in Glendale, Ariz. this spring.

Rick Pitino’s Kentucky team cruised to a 76-67 victory over Jim Boeheim’s Syracuse team in the 1996 NCAA Championship in a tournament that saw the Wildcats winning their first four games by at least 20 points and every game by at least seven points. At the time, one of Syracuse’s bench players was Donovan McNabb, who later found fame as the quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles.

The competition was fierce and the final entered overtime, but the Arizona Wildcats managed to hold off the defending champion Kentucky Wildcats in an 84-79 win at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis. Miles Simon, who is currently an ESPN analyst, was named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player.

Although Kentucky coach Rick Pitino left after the previous season to coach the Boston Celtics, the Wildcats and new skipper Tubby Smith still made it back to the NCAA Championship (for the third consecutive year) and won against the Utah Utes, 78-69. Kentucky players were dubbed the “Comeback Cats” after overcoming double-digit deficits in each of their last three games, including a 17-point second-half comeback against Duke.

Although Connecticut teams are now contenders for the NCAA Championship quite a bit, the Huskies didn’t make their first appearance in a final until 1999, when they defeated Coach K’s Duke Blue Devils, 77-74, at Tropicana Field in Tampa. To date, this was the only Final Four held at a baseball-specific stadium. The win by UConn snapped Duke’s 32-game winning streak.

After a number of upsets, only one top four-seeded team made it to the Final Four. That was the No. 4 Michigan State Spartans, who beat the Florida Gators 89-76 for the NCAA Championship. It was the team’s first title since 1979. Despite the aforementioned upsets, no team higher than an 11 seed won a single game in the tournament, which was also the last before Bobby Knight was famously and controversially fired by the Hoosiers for misconduct that included choking one of his players.

Duke beat Arizona 82-72 for the 2001 NCAA Championship, but the Blue Devils’ ride to the top wasn’t without its speed bumps. Duke had to overcome a 22-point deficit, the largest in Final Four history, to beat the Maryland Terrapins and face Arizona in the championship. Duke’s Shane Battier hit two crucial three-pointers in the closing seconds of that game and earned the Most Outstanding Player award for the tourney.

Indiana was back in the NCAA Championship sans Bobby Knight, but the Hoosiers ultimately lost to the Maryland Terrapins, a team that had been a regular participant in the tournament but just made its first Final Four appearance the previous year. The final score was a lopsided 64-52 event, and the Terps led for almost the entire game. This was the first time the NCAA used the “pod” system to determine the various host sites.

In Roy Williams’ last year as head coach of the Kansas Jayhawks, he took his team all the way to the NCAA Championship but dropped the game to Jim Boeheim’s Syracuse Orange, 81-78. Boeheim was also seeking his first title as a coach after falling in the final in 1987 and 1996, and his dream was finally realized in 2003 thanks in part to that season’s Most Outstanding Player, Carmelo Anthony.

Connecticut was back to capture the NCAA Championship for the second time in six years, defeating Georgia Tech, 82-73, in the Yellow Jackets’ first Final Four appearance since 1990. Only hours prior, the UConn women’s team also won its final game, making this the first time a Division I school won titles in men's and women's basketball in the same season. It wouldn’t, however, be the last time.

After losing in the final game with Kansas twice, coach Roy Williams won his first NCAA Championship with North Carolina in 2005 after his team toppled Illinois to the tune of 75-70. This was the first time since 1999 that the National Championship was played between two No. 1 seeds, and UNC’s Sean May nabbed Most Outstanding Player honors for the tourney.

Not a single No. 1 team managed to advance to the Final Four in 2006, paving the way for No. 3 Florida to top No. 2 UCLA by a score of 73-57 for the school's first basketball championship. Billy Donovan was at the helm for the win, and Florida’s Joakim Noah was named Most Outstanding Player.

In 2007, the Gators became the first team to win back-to-back championships since Duke’s two titles in 1991 and 1992. Florida bested Ohio State 84-75 in the game, which was coincidentally the second time in 2007 that a Gator team beat a Buckeye team for a college championship. Only two months prior, Florida’s football team won the BCS National Championship by defeating Ohio State 41-14.

In the last NCAA Championship to go into overtime, the Kansas Jayhawks defeated the Memphis Tigers, 75-68. This was the first time in tournament history that the Final Four consisted of only one-seeded teams — however, Memphis’ entire 2007-08 season was eventually vacated when it was determined that Derrick Rose’s SAT scores had been invalidated. It had been 20 years since Kansas last won a championship.

For the first time since seeding began, every one through three seed made it to the Sweet 16, with top-seeded North Carolina eventually knocking off No. 2 Michigan State in the final, 89-72. The victory came relatively easily, as the Tar Heels got off to a 34-11 lead in the first half and entered halftime with the score at 55-34. UNC’s Wayne Ellington was named Most Outstanding Player in the tourney, and he scored 19 points in the final game.

After a nine-year absence from the NCAA Championship, Duke returned to the big game and narrowly defeated Butler in a 61-59 affair. The Bulldogs had a shot at the title when Gordon Hayward heaved a half-court shot at the buzzer that would have given them the win, but the year’s tournament once again belonged to the Blue Devils.

Butler again made it to the National Championship in 2011 but again lost, this time to Jim Calhoun and the UConn Huskies by a score of 53-41. Connecticut was a three seed and Butler an eight, making this the first time since 1989 that neither a one or two competed in the final game. For the first time in several years (and the last time to date), the field of competition expanded, and it now includes a total of 68 teams.

The 2012 NCAA Championship was a rematch of sorts. Back in 2008, Bill Self coached Kansas in its title win against John Calipari and the Memphis Tigers. In 2012, however, Calipari was with the Kentucky Wildcats, who successfully knocked off Self’s Kansas Jayhawks in the National Championship, 67-59. Anthony Davis was named Most Outstanding Player.

The last time Louisville won a National Championship, not one of its 2013 players had even been born yet, and the team’s head coach, Rick Pitino, was still calling the shots back at Providence. Fast-forward 27 years and the Cardinals were once again on top after beating the Michigan Wolverines, 82-76. However, as you may remember, this was actually Pitino’s second win after previously coaching Kentucky to a 1996 NCAA championship.

When Connecticut won the NCAA Championship in 2014, it did so without Jim Calhoun, who stepped down in 2012 at age 70 after a 40-season coaching career and numerous health issues in recent years. Nevertheless, the Huskies beat the Kentucky Wildcats, 60-54. The very next day, UConn’s women’s team secured its own tournament victory, making 2014 the second time that both of the school’s basketball teams won the championship in the same season.

Although Wisconsin made the Final Four the previous year as well as two other times, 2015 was the first National Championship appearance for the Badgers since 1941. However, they couldn’t squeeze out a win over the Duke Blue Devils, who won in a 68-63 game that put Mike Krzyzewski in second place all time for Division I men's basketball titles.

In the 78-year history of March Madness, the Villanova Wildcats participated in the tournament 36 times, made the Sweet 16 a total of 17 times, made the Elite Eight 13 times and got all the way to the Final Four five times. Yet prior to 2016, the Wildcats only won the tournament once, the 1985 upset victory over Georgetown. The Wildcats managed to top the UNC Tar Heels, 77-74, thanks to an epic three-point buzzer beater by Kris Jenkins that followed a crazy three-pointer but UNC's Marcus Paige to tie the game in one of the most thrilling finishes in NCAA Tournament history.