Factoids on the NCAA Tournament

I know that March Madness has passed us. North Carolina just won its sixth National title in school history. But as I was looking through the annals of the NCAA Tournament, which I often like to do. I noticed that there are many interesting tidbits or "factoids", as I like to call them.

Here are some of those factoids: As everyone knows, UCLA has won the most national titles since the tournament began in 1939, the same year that WW II started. Therefore, not surprisingly, the PAC-10 is the conference with the most national titles at 15 followed by the ACC (11), the Big East (9), the SEC and Big 10 tied with 8, the Big 12 with 5, the Mountain West Conference (3), the WCC (2), and the WAC, Patriot League, Atlantic 10 and Horizon conferences with 1 each. Community College of New York (CCNY) also won a national title in 1950.

The conference with the most Final Four appearances since 1939 is the Big 10 with 45, followed by the Big East with 44, the ACC (43), the Big 12 and PAC 10 tied with 35, and the SEC with 29. The Atlantic 10 has had 10 of its teams go to the Final Four. Conference USA and the Missouri Valley Conference both have seen 9 of their teams go. Rounding out the tally is the West Coast Conference with 5 Final Four appearances, followed by the Ivey League and Missouri Valley each with four, the Patriot League with 2, and the Horizon, Atlantic Sun and Sunbelt each with 1 Final Four representative.

Other fascinating tidbits include UAB beating Kentucky in the second round of the NCAA Tournament on 2 different occasions: in 1981 and 2004.1981 was the year the Indiana Hoosiers, led by PG Isaiah Thomas, won their fourth national title. That year UAB, under Head Coach Gene Bartowe, defeated Kentucky before losing to the Hoosiers in the next round. Twenty-three years later, the Blazers, led by current Missouri Coach Mike Anderson, would repeat the feat by defeating the Wildcats in the second round before losing to Kansas in the sweet 16.

Also, since 1939 the national title game has seen 6 overtimes. One of them was a triple overtime game in which it took 3 extra periods for North Carolina to defeat Kansas 54-53 to win their first of 6 national crowns. Another intriguing fact is that on 2 occasions, the final score of the National Championship Game was 84-75. Georgetown defeated Houston 84-75 in 1984 and Florida defeated Ohio St. 84-75 in 2007. On four occassions in the tournament's history, the winning team of the National Title game has finished with 84 points , the other two being Kentucky over Seattle 84-72 in 1958, and Arizona beating Kentucky in 1997 by the score of 84-79 in overtime.

Another strange coincidence is that two years in a row, the winning team in the national title game scored 63 points. Indiana defeated North Carolina 63-50, and the following year, the Tar Heels, with Freshman Michael Jordan, beat Georgetown 63-62.

Here's the craziest stat of all. The total amount of points scored by the National Champion from 1939 to the present is 5,105 points and the total points scored by the runner up from 1939 to the present is 4,434 points, a 671 point difference. One last factoid, the only team in tournament history to score 100 points or more in a the National Championship Game is UNLV. They did it in 1990 when they thrashed Duke 103-73.
I hope you enjoyed this tour of relatively unknown factoids dealing with the NCAA Tournament. Stay tuned, more interesting blogs about the world of college sports are on the way.