Daily Archives: March 5, 2012
NCAA Tournament: Schools with the Most Final Four Appearances
North Carolina Has Made It to the Most Final Fours. That's You Know Who.
The 2012 NCAA Tournament is right around the corner, and yesterday we saw the top 20 schools with the most appearances.
Let’s go a little deeper.
Who’s made it to the Final Four the most times? Here are your top 20. Black years indicate a loss in the school’s Final Four game; red text indicates losing in the championship game; blue text means winning it all.
Now there is a caveat here: vacated tournament runs. I did not include them in the chart below. Schools with a vacated season (or two in Michigan’s case) are signified by an asterisk. Let’s run them down briefly:
1. UCLA, 1980, ineligible players [lost title game]
2. Ohio State, 1999, NCAA rules violations [lost Final Four game]
3. Michigan 1992 & 1993, payments to college athletes [lost title game both times]
4. Villanova would make the list (with four), but their 1971 run was vacated when it was discovered that the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player, Howard Porter, was already a pro [lost Final Four game]
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* 2012 Update: The Final Four is Kentucky (15th Final Four appearance), Kansas (14th), Ohio State (10th) and Louisville (9th).
| 18 | North Carolina | 1946, 1957, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1972, 1977, 1981, 1982, 1991, 1993, 1995, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2005, 2008, 2009 |
| 17 | UCLA* | 1962, 1964, 1965, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1995, 2006, 2007, 2008 |
| 15 | Duke | 1963, 1964, 1966, 1978, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1999, 2001, 2004, 2010 |
| 14 | Kentucky | 1942, 1948, 1949, 1951, 1958, 1966, 1975, 1978, 1984, 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2011 |
| 13 | Kansas | 1940, 1952, 1953, 1957, 1971, 1974, 1986, 1988, 1991, 1993, 2002, 2003, 2008 |
| 9 | Ohio State* | 1939, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1968, 2007 |
| 8 | Indiana | 1940, 1953, 1973, 1976, 1981, 1987, 1992, 2002 |
| 8 | Louisville | 1959, 1972, 1975, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1986, 2005 |
| 8 | Michigan State | 1957, 1979, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2005, 2009, 2010 |
| 6 | Arkansas | 1941, 1945, 1978, 1990, 1994, 1995 |
| 6 | Cincinnati | 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1992 |
| 6 | Oklahoma State | 1945, 1946, 1949, 1951, 1995, 2004 |
| 5 | Georgetown | 1943, 1982, 1984, 1985, 2007 |
| 5 | Houston | 1967, 1968, 1982, 1983, 1984 |
| 5 | Illinois | 1949, 1951, 1952, 1989, 2005 |
| 4 | Arizona | 1988, 1994, 1997, 2001 |
| 4 | Connecticut | 1999, 2004, 2009, 2011 |
| 4 | Florida | 1994, 2000, 2006, 2007 |
| 4 | Kansas State | 1948, 1951, 1958, 1964 |
| 4 | LSU | 1953, 1981, 1986, 2006 |
| 4 | Michigan* | 1964, 1965, 1976, 1989 |
| 4 | Oklahoma | 1939, 1947, 1988, 2002 |
| 4 | Syracuse | 1975, 1987, 1996, 2003 |
| 4 | UNLV | 1977, 1987, 1990, 1991 |
| 4 | Utah | 1944, 1961, 1966, 1998 |
Photo: morheadcain.org
