Duke
Did you know that Duke lost the 1964 NCAA Final as UCLA began its run of 10 championships in 12 years or that the Blue Devils won their first NCAA crown in 1991 by turning the tables on UNLV in the semis a year after losing to the Runnin’ Rebels in the Final Four by 30 points?
Gonzaga
Did you know that Mark Few has spent 26 years coaching at Gonzaga, including the last 16 as the head coach, or that two Gonzaga players (Frank Burgess in 1961 and Adam Morrison in 2006) have led the nation in scoring?
Iowa State
Did you know that there is no better fit of coach and school in college basketball than Fred Hoiberg with his alma mater? Hoiberg grew up in Ames, Iowa, was an academic All-American his senior year, was the state’s Mr. Basketball in leading the Ames High School Little Cyclones to the state championship, and was Iowa’s top high school quarterback.
Georgetown
Did you know that despite winning the 1984 NCAA championship the Hoyas may be best remembered as the losers of two dramatic Finals? In the first, in 1982, they lost to North Carolina after sophomore Michael Jordan hit the winning shot. In the second, in 1985, they lost to Villanova in one of the greatest upsets in championship game history.
Utah
Did you know that the Utes won the 1944 NCAA championship or that the team’s 5 ft. 7 in. playmaker, Japanese-American Wataru “Wat" Misaka, became the first non-Caucasian to play in the NBA in 1947, when Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color line?
Southern Methodist
Did you know that head coach Larry Brown is the oldest active Div. I coach in the country at 74 or that he has coached nine different NBA teams and is the only coach with NBA (Detroit) and NCAA titles (Kansas)?
Iowa
Did you know that Fran McCaffery, the Hawkeyes’ head coach, is among a select group of coaches who have led four different colleges to the NCAA tournament? In his case, the teams are Siena, Lehigh, UNC-Greensboro, and Iowa.
San Diego State
Did you know that the Aztecs started out in the NAIA (a small college counterpart to the NCAA), where it won back-to-back national titles in 1940 and 1941? Or that SDS star Kawhi Leonard was the MVP of the NBA Finals with the San Antonio Spurs last year?
St. John’s
Did you know that that political correctness led St. John’s to change its nickname from Redmen to Red Storm in 1994 after the school’s worst basketball season in 31 years?
Davidson
Did you know that Davidson’s program has formed a partnership with a professor in the North Carolina school’s math and computer science department to help determine the efficiency of various lineups?
UCLA
Did you know that Bruins coach Steve Alford was a teammate of Michael Jordan’s on the 1984 gold-medal-winning 1984 Olympic team, the last US amateur team to win the gold?
Stephen F. Austin
Did you know that Brad Underwood is the all-time winningest second-year head coach in NCAA Division I history? The record 59th win came when the Lumberjacks won their third straight Southland Conference regular-season title by beating rival Sam Houston State. Stephen F. Austin also won the rematch in the Southland tournament championship game.
Eastern Washington
Did you know that the Eagles have an Australian talent pipeline, with three Aussies on the current Eastern Washington roster, along with a Ukrainian and a German?
UAB (Alabama Birmingham)
Did you know that the Blazers have 10 underclassmen on the roster that won the school’s first Conference USA championship?
North Dakota State
Did you know that North Dakota State is really known as a football school, having won 12 national championships, including the NCAA’s latest Football Championship Subdivision playoffs?
Northern Florida
Did you know that the Ospreys, who only began playing basketball in 1992 and transitioned to Division I in recent years, played its first nationally televised game in 2011?
Robert Morris
Did you know that Robert Morris built its basketball tradition on the Moon Township, Pa., campus when Gus Krop, the retired director of campus police, took over what had been a club team in 1963?
