Best School to Never Win it All?

[CO_Hoya]

Anyone have an opinion on the best school that's never won a championship? These are the schools where you just figure they must have won one at some point. To make it simple, let's limit it to the modern era NCAA championship (from the UCLA dynasty, forward). This limits the grey area regarding NIT champs.

I bring this up because I'd think St. John's would be a contender (early 80's teams especially). Others off of the top of my head:

Illinois ('89, '05 teams)
Georgia Tech (Price/Scott/Marbury/etc.)
Virginia (Sampson era)
Oklahoma
Cincinnati (won 2 pre-UCLA)

Here's a link to the champs list <-click the words before the arrow

(Edited to help pr)

[prhoya]

Where's that link?

[aggypryd]

Wake Forest (Duncan, Childress)
Temple (Macon, McKie, Jones)
Florida
Texas

[TigerHoya]

South Carolina in the McGuire years.

[hoyaparanoia1984]

I would say it was the four years Sampson was at Virginia...4 final fours....GOOSE EGG!

[DFW HOYA]

hoyaparanoia1984 said:

I would say it was the four years Sampson was at Virginia...4 final fours....GOOSE EGG!

Virginia was in the Final Four one of Sampson's four seasons, not four.

[Badger Hoya]

LSU -- between Maravich, Shaq, Chris Jackson, and Bob Pettit

[hoyaparanoia1984]

Your right, had a typo. The "1" is under the "4"

Sampson was though a three-time national player of the year but no NCAA hardware

[aggypryd]

Houston - Phi Slama Jama

[Jack]

Best school? Harvard, although some say Princeton. I will leave MIT out, as they are D-3

Best basketball program? Some good nominations already, but many of them were only very good for a short period of time (e.g. St. John's, Houston). Purdue and Georgia Tech emerge for me as programs that were solid for most of that period and had several runs in the Top 5 or to the Final 4, but never got it done. Wake Forest is close.

It was much more fun when the obvious answer to this question was Syracuse.

[HoyaRejuveNation85]

I'm with aggypryd. Houston is the best not to win that I've seen.

[Jack]

St. John's (27), Notre Dame (26), and Temple (25) have the most NCAA tournament appearances without a championship. Of course that takes into account many years of the pre-modern NCAA tournament, but I was still surprised to see that many appearances by ND and Temple.

[lichoya68]

was st johns one of the three big east in the final four that year . go hoyas flush the winless thats ncaa championship winless johnnies... make ny alums proud at work on monday no more suprise embarassments go hoyas

[HoyaRejuveNation85]

lic, SJU was one of the 3 BE teams in the Final Four in 1985. We knocked them out in the semis.

[StPetersburgHoya (Inactive)]

Duke after Coach K's NCAA violations are finally exposed and all of their tournament victories are taken away.

[idhoya]

Houston would be my choice also. 3 straight final fours during phi slamma jamma era. Guy Lewis was a very good coach who never got to taste the champaign.

[Jack]

idhoya said:

Houston would be my choice also. 3 straight final fours during phi slamma jamma era. Guy Lewis was a very good coach who never got to taste the champaign.

Or perhaps he was a bad coach who managed to get great talent but could never take it to a championship- I certainly did not see enough of those teams to know, but I have heard others express that opinion.

[tgo]

If the question is best basketball program to never win i think it would be St Johns or LSU. St johns is the 5th winningest program yet doesnt have any banners to show for it. I think LSU deservedly made it to the ESPN page 2 all time tournament final four, with that amount of talent they should have won something at some point.

[Jack]

As I said to a few St. John's fans following the 2003 NIT finals, "Congratulations on the win, that banner would have looked nice next to our national champion's banner, but I don't think I would trade it straight up."

[Boz]

Sergio Garcia