NCAA Tournament Droughts

Yesterday, in the NFL Playoffs, one long drought ended and another one continued. The Dallas Cowboys won their first playoff game since 1996. They were one of 6 teams that had not won a playoff game since the 1990's. The team that has gone the longest without a playoff win is the Cincinnati Bengals who last won a playoff game January 6, 1991 against the Houston Oilers. (For those that are too young to remember, that is the team that the Tennessee Titans used to be.)

This is a blog about the NCAA Tournament, not the NFL, but I started thinking about the playoff droughts and wondered who had the longest droughts in the NCAA Tournament. First I started with longest drought since last win. Unlike the NFL, where almost every team has won a playoff game (except the Houston Texans), only about half the teams have won NCAA Tournament games. Therefore, to qualify for longest drought, the team actually had to win a game first. Winless teams obviously have had longer droughts (infinite), but I am looking at time since last win.

The 5 teams that have the longest droughts are:

1. Baylor - defeated Brigham Young 56-55 on 3/23/1950 in the Elite Eight
2. CCNY - defeated Bradley 71-68 on 3/28/1950 in the National Championship
3. Lebanon Valley - defeated Fordham 80-67 on 3/10/1953 in the First Round (Round of 32)
4. Holy Cross - defeated Wake Forest 79-71 on 3/13/1953 in the Elite Eight
5. Rice - defeated Colorado 78-55 on 3/13/1954 in the Regional Third Place game

Out of those teams, only Baylor is in a "BCS" conference and has the best chance of ending their drought. CCNY and Lebanon Valley are no longer Division I schools. Some other notable schools that have long droughts include:

• South Carolina - last win in 1973
• Oregon State - last win in 1982
• Rutgers - last win in 1983
• Houston - last win in 1984 (in the Final Four - lost to Georgetown in the Championship)
• Massachusetts - last win in 1996 (in the Elite Eight - lost to Kentucky in the Final Four)
• Minnesota - last win in 1997 (in the Elite Eight - lost to Kentucky in the Final Four)

Not winning an NFL playoff game usually means that you did not make it to the final 8 in playoffs. So I decided to also see who has the longest drought since their last Elite Eight appearance. The 5 schools that have gone the longest since their last Elite Eight appearance are:

1. Brown - 1939
2. Springfield - 1940
3. Creighton - 1941
4. Washington State -1941
5. Rice - 1942

Washington State is the only BCS school in the list. Other notable schools include:

• Baylor - 1950
• Washington - 1953
• California - 1960
• Arizona State - 1975
• DePaul - 1979
• Notre Dame - 1979
• Clemson - 1980
• North Carolina State - 1986
• Iowa - 1987
• Kansas State - 1988

Washington has been to the Sweet Sixteen four times since 1953, but the two most notable games are when they were defeated by Connecticut on a last second shot by Richard Hamilton in 1998 and lost in overtime to Connecticut in 2006 when Rashad Anderson hit a game-tying three-pointer for UConn to send it into overtime.

Clemson also reached the Sweet Sixteen in 1990 and was defeated by (you guessed it) UConn on a (yep) last-second shot by Tate George.

Iowa also faced UConn in the 1999 Sweet Sixteen, but it ended in less dramatic fashion with a 78-68 victory by UConn.