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2022 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament By The Numbers
The 2022 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament is officially set, and there is history on the line.
But while a host of teams and players will be seeking to carve out their own history in the Big Dance, this is a great time to take a look into the past and examine the numbers that will define the next three weeks of basketball action.
Who is best built to win the national championship?
Here are the numbers to know.
GENERAL
1: Only one of the past seven national champions (2017-18 Villanova) won its conference tournament.
7: The most schools from a single state to appear in the NCAA Tournament is seven. That has happened three times: once by California (2002) and twice by Texas (2010, 2021).
8: The No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the final AP Poll have met only eight times in the national championship game. The No. 2 teams have won five of those eight matchups. Most recently, No. 2 North Carolina defeated No. 1 Illinois 75-70 in the 2005 final.
11: The lowest seed to reach a Final Four is No. 11, which has happened five times. The lowest-seeded team to win a national championship is 8-seed Villanova, which defeated No. 1 Georgetown in 1985.
12: 12-seeds have won at least one first-round game in 31 of the past 36 tournaments, with the only exceptions coming in 1988, 2000, 2007, 2015 and 2018.
16: Only one 16-seed (UMBC in 2018) has ever won a tournament game (excluding the First Four play-in games), making them 1-144 (.007) all time.
25: Since seeding began in 1979, 25 No. 1 seeds have won national championships, the most of any seed. Eleven of the past 14 champions have been No. 1 seeds. No. 2 seeds are next, with seven titles, followed by 3-seeds with five and 6-seeds with two. A No. 5 seed has never won the title.
26: Since the selection committee began seeding every team in 1979, the highest combined seed total of the Final Four is 26 (2011: No. 3 Connecticut, No. 4 Kentucky, No. 8 Butler, No. 11 VCU). Only one time have all four No. 1 seeds reached the Final Four (2008).
TEAM/PLAYER RECORDS AND MILESTONES
11: UCLA holds the record for most championships, with 11. Following the Bruins are Kentucky (eight), North Carolina (six), Duke (five) and Indiana (five).
17: The Tar Heels have been a No. 1 seed a record 17 times. Duke and Kansas are next, with 14 each. North Carolina also holds the record for most Final Four appearances, with 20.
23: The most career NCAA Tournament games played is 23, by Duke's Christian Laettner.
59: The most tournament appearances by a school (Kentucky) is 59. The record for consecutive tourney appearances is 31, an active streak held by Kansas.
61: The most points scored by a player in an NCAA Tournament game is 61, by Notre Dame's Austin Carr against Ohio in the first round in 1970.
69: The largest margin of victory in a game is 69, which came when Loyola Chicago beat Tennessee Tech 111-42 in 1963.
149: The most points scored by a team in a single game is 149, by Loyola Marymount in a 149-115 win over Michigan in 1990.
184: The most points scored by a player in a tournament is 184 by Michigan's Glen Rice in 1989.
COACHING RECORDS AND MILESTONES
1: Steve Fisher (1989, Michigan) is the only person to win a national championship in his first year as a head coach. Only three have won it all in their first year at a school, with Cincinnati's Ed Jucker (1961) and Kentucky's Tubby Smith (1998) joining Fisher.
2: Only Rick Pitino has won a title at two schools (1996 at Kentucky, 2013 at Louisville).
12: The most Final Four appearances by a head coach, shared by UCLA's John Wooden and Duke's Mike Krzyzewski. Coach K has also made the most tournament appearances (35), a record he shares with Syracuse's Jim Boeheim.
23: Tom Izzo of Michigan State has the longest active tournament streak, with 23 appearances (1998-2021).
97: That's the most tournament wins by a head coach, and again, it's Coach K on top.
