2010 NCAA title or not, Butler has staked its place among the best non-major conference college basketball teams of all time. The question will be, can the Bulldogs return to the summit again? Only one team from this list made it to the championship game more than once.
5. Utah, 1998 » Keith Van Horn had graduated when the Utes made an improbable run to the title game. Andre Miller and Michael Doleac carried Utah past Arizona and North Carolina before falling to Kentucky in the NCAAs for the third straight year.
4. Memphis, 2008 » Behind Derrick Rose and Chris Douglas-Roberts, the Tigers dribble-drove all over nearly every team but never learned to shoot free throws. Of course all of the wins from the season were vacated, too. Thanks, John Calipari, who had the same thing happen with another non-BCS squad, Massachusetts.
3. UNLV, 1990 » This might as well have been an NBA team, with Larry Johnson, Greg Anthony and Stacey Augmon. Yet it was Anderson Hunt who was named the most outstanding player in the Final Four, where the Runnin’ Rebels rallied to beat Georgia Tech before utterly thrashing Duke by 30 points in the final. The Blue Devils got their revenge in the 1991 Final Four.
2. Houston, 1983-84 » The Cougars are the only non-major conference team since 1979 to get to more than one title game, but the Phi Slama Jama squad of Clyde Drexler and Hakeem Olajuwon didn’t win in either attempt, getting upset by North Carolina State and Georgetown.
1. Indiana State, 1979 » Basketball changed because of Larry Bird, so the Sycamores top this list. They were undefeated and ranked No. 1 in the nation headed into the national championship, and it took none other than Magic Johnson to stop them. It’s a run that might not ever be equaled.
