I first thought about this subject months ago, when Noles, randomly talking trash about Duke one day, asked if it made me sad that Duke beat both UNLV (Larry Johnson was/is my boy) and KU in the '91 Final Four, then turned around the next year and took down the Fab Five in the championship game, in effect wiping out my three favorite college basketball teams on their way to back-to-back nattys. So now, in the spirit of March and all the joy this month brings, here are my favorite college basketball teams of all time, non-Jayhawk division.
Honorable mentions:
2012 Norfolk St.- Any 15 seed that beats Mizzou as a 2 seed in the first round, particularly in the year that Mizzou ditches the Big 12, is at least going to be an honorable mention, even if the only player I can still name from that squad is Kyle O'Quinn. In all seriousness though, this game did not resemble a typical March Madness upset. If you showed this game to a neutral observer without telling him who the 2 seed and who the 15 seed was, he would've told you that Norfolk was the 2-- that's how well they played this game. Fun fact: I was all fired up after the game about how good Norfolk St. looked, so I loaded up on them for their second round game vs. Florida +11.....and they lost by 34 points. Ten minutes into the game, the score was something like 30-6. One of my worst bets of all time. Worth it.
1996 UMASS- The '95 squad had more talent top to bottom, but as soon as Lou Roe graduated and Marcus Camby became the man....HEADS UP. It was also a ton of fun to watch their all-Puerto Rican backcourt of Edgar Padilla and Carmelo Travieso bomb threes and drop dimes all game. This team deserved a title, but unfortunately lost in the Final Four when they ran into one of the best teams of the entire decade in Kentucky. This was probably the point where Leo Inceptioned John Calipari into leaving UMASS, becoming the antichrist, and going to coach Kentucky someday.
1988 Arizona- OK, so technically, I wasn't quite old enough to remember this team. But they did have Kenny Lofton, who would subsequently become one of my favorite baseball players of all time. And I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention the team represented in this video, which is probably the most linked-to video in the history of The Slice.
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2000 Seton Hall- Street-balled and trash-talked their way to the Sweet 16 as a 10 seed, and were a basket away from the Elite 8. They played like their roster was full of potential pros....but the only one you ever heard from again was Samuel Dalembert.
1992 Cincinnati- Three words: Nick. Van. Exel.
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1995 Wake Forest- Young Tim Duncan was fun and all, but RANDOLPH CHILDRESS THO. (You don't have to watch this whole clip, especially if you're a Carolina fan...but please please please just watch the crossover at the :25 mark, then jump out of your chair and yell and gesticulate like you're watching a pickup game at Rucker Park. That's all I ask. "OHHHHH SHIT!!! Sit down! Sit the fuck down! Sit on it, son!!!!!")
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Top 5:
5. 2001 Arizona- I was a hipster Gilbert Arenas fan; I loved him way before it was cool. Loren Woods is one of my five favorite non-KU players of all time. And, naturally, Duke beat this team in the title game.
4. 1999 UCONN- I have a few random reasons why I love late-90's UCONN.
- Khalid El-Amin, the greatest fat point guard in human history. Middle Schneweis Brother went to one of his high school games in Minneapolis. The opposing student section taunted him all game, waving empty pizza boxes at him and whatnot. El-Amin dropped like 40 points, hit a game-winning buzzer beater, and sprinted off the court, snatching a pizza box from a student on his way off the court and taking it with him to the locker room. Hero.
- Our March Madness pool came down to the championship game that year. If Duke won the game, Dunph won the pool. If UCONN won, Lane took the cash. UCONN scored the upset, and Lane claims to this day that Trajan Langdon threw the game on the last possession (1:21:45 mark, if I didn't link it correctly) so that Lane could collect the $59. A running joke that has lasted all these years.
(Side story, this week's edition of "Dammit, we're getting old": Lane, who is taking classes at Rhode Island now, saw some kid wearing a '99 UCONN championship hat the other day. Lane said nice hat, and told him how he won his high school March Madness pool because of that game. The kid just looked at Lane and said "Yeah, I was five years old.")
- Jake Voskuhl's hair + sideburns. He should've just gone the whole nine and played games while wearing a white puka shell necklace.
- Technically this happened in '98, not '99....but UCONN had basically the same roster, and it's one of my favorite tournament buzzer beaters of all time, so the judges are going to allow it. "HAMILTON! NO! Another tip! No! Haaaaaaamilton! At the buzzer-EEYYYEEEESSSSSSS! YESSSSSSS! CONNECTICUT WINS!"
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3. 1995 Villanova- Kerry Kittles waaaaas myyyyyyy shiiiiit! You better believe I was rocking the one low sock, one high sock look when I was in middle school. (As well as sometimes the one high black sock, one high white sock look, but I don't have Kerry Kittles to blame for that one.) And Nova's jerseys were so, so 90's. They should be put in a time capsule or something. Look at that font! And the random zig-zags and colors on their shorts! Damn, the mid-90's were baller.
2. 1990 UNLV- This team was smack in the middle of my formative years. 1989-90 was my first year on the record as a KU fan, but it really could've gone either way; that's how badass this Runnin' Rebel team was. Whether or not my life would've progressed the same way, and whether I'd be living in Las Vegas right now with season tickets to UNLV games, is a whole different question that only the Butterfly Effect could answer. With my
1. 1993 Michigan- I'll take the Fab Five's Sophomore year over their Freshman year, since their swag had grown to an all-time high by then. Really, not much explanation needed besides that. I figure that if you asked this question to every college basketball fan within seven years older or younger than me, the Fab Five would be the #1 answer for like 75% of them. This team literally revolutionized college basketball. Michigan and UNLV are like the Nirvana and Pearl Jam of college basketball. Without their baggy shorts and cocky attitudes, we as basketball fans might still be listening to bullshit like Poison or Motley Crue.
