The 10 Players With The Most Points In A Single NCAA Tournament

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It’s tough for college basketball teams to make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament without having at least one star player who leads the charge. Plenty of guys have had some impressive performances, but there are some who really stand out from the pack based on their ability to rise to the occasion when March Madness rolls around.

It goes without saying there’s a ton of pressure on every single player who participates in the NCAA Tournament, and while some of them have trouble adjusting to college basketball’s biggest stage, others have been more than able to rise to the occasion.

That includes the players who are responsible for scoring the most points over the course of a single NCAA Tournament run; you might think most of names on this list joined it after the field was expanded to 64 teams in 1985, but the majority of them actually took full advantage of the smaller field prior to that point.

Glen Rice: 184

Michigan won its first—and, to date, only—national championship in 1989, and no one played a bigger role in that title run than Glen Rice.

The third-seeded Wolverines needed six victories to win it all, and the 6’8″ forward stepped up when it mattered most to cap off his senior year with a bang thanks to these performances:

• 23 points against Xavier
• 36 points against Southern Alabama
• 34 points against UNC in the Sweet Sixteen
• 32 points against Virginia in the Elite Eight
• 28 points against Illinois in the Final Four
• 31 points against Seton Hall in the national championship

Rice broke the record we’ll get to in a second that had stood for close to 25 years, and his standout showing led to him being selected by the Heat with the fourth overall pick in the 1989 NBA Draft.

Bill Bradley: 177

Bill Bradley was the captain of the Princeton team that went 15-9 and was one of the 24 squads invited to compete in the NCAA Tournament in 1965 before making an unlikely run to the Final Four due in no small part to the contributions of a forward who had:

• 22 points against Penn State
• 27 points against NC State in the Sweet Sixteen
• 41 points against Providence College in the Elite Eight
• 29 points against Michigan in the Final Four

This one comes with a bit of an asterisk, as you might have noticed that doesn’t add up to 177.

There was still a third-place consolation game at the time (it was played for the last time in 1981), and the 58 points he put up against Wichita State while leading the Tigers to a 118-82 win counts for the overall total in the official record books (it was also the most points ever scored in a March Madness game at the time).

Bradley would eventually spend a decade with the Knicks and served three terms as a United States senator representing New Jersey before staging an ill-fated run for president in the 2000 election.

Elvin Hayes: 167

Elvin Hayes was a dominant center who averaged 31 points per game during a three-year career at Houston that ended after the Cougars competed in March Madness in 1968.

He was also the beneficiary of the third-place game that year during a run where he had:

• 49 points against Loyola-Chicago
• 35 points against Louisville in the Sweet Sixteen
• 39 points against TCU in the Elite Eight
• 10 points against UCLA in the Final Four (a game where he was shut down by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who was still known as Lew Alcindor at the time)
• 34 points against Ohio State in the consolation game

Hayes subsequently joined the San Diego Rockets and had a Hall of Fame career where he made the All-Star Team 12 times in the 16 seasons he played in the league.

Danny Manning: 163

Kansas ended up in the NCAA Tournament as a six-seed in 1988 after going 21-11 in the regular season but kicked things into high gear when it mattered most on the back of Danny Manning, the center who recorded:

• 24 points against Xavier
• 25 points against Murray State
• 38 points against Vanderbilt in the Sweet Sixteen
• 20 points against Kansas State in the Elite Eight
• 25 points against Duke in the Final Four
• 31 points against Oklahoma in the national championship

The Jayhawks got their second title with an 83-79 win over the Sooners. Manning was selected by the Clippers with the first overall pick in the 1988 NBA Draft and spent 16 seasons in the league before pivoting to coaching after retiring (he’s currently an assistant at Colorado).

Jerry West: 160

We’ve got another member of basketball royalty on this list courtesy of Jerry West, who initially emerged as a star while playing college basketball at West Virginia.

The Mountaineers punched their ticket to The Big Dance all three seasons West played on the varsity team and lost in the title game in 1959 after the guard posted:

• 25 points against Dartmouth
• 36 points against St. Joseph’s in the Sweet Sixteen
• 33 points against Boston University in the Elite Eight
• 38 points against Louisville in the Final Four
• 28 points against Cal in the national championship

As you likely know, West was drafted by the Lakers with the second overall pick in 1960 and ended up in the Hall of Fame after picking up where he left off in the NBA.

Hal Lear: 160

West tied the record that Hal Lear had previously set just a few years before when Temple made its first-ever appearance in the Final Four with the help of the standout guard who had:

• 26 points against Holy Cross
• 4o points against UConn in the Sweet Sixteen
• 14 points against Canisius in the Elite Eight
• 32 points against Iowa in the Final Four
• 48 points against SMU in the consolation game

Lear was selected with the seventh overall pick in the 1956 NBA Draft but ultimately only appeared in three games for the Philadelphia Warriors while scoring a grand total of four points.

However, he fared a bit better when he took his talents to the now-defunct Eastern Professional Basketball League.

Joe Barry Carroll: 158

We’ve got two more guys who also managed to score the same number of points during the NCAA Tournament.

We’ll kick things off with Joe Barry Carroll, the Purdue center who put this string of games together when the Boilermakers got the March Madness nod during his senior season in 1980:

• 33 points against La Salle
• 36 points against St. John’s
• 11 points against Indiana in the Sweet Sixteen
• 26 points against Duke in the Elite Eight
• 17 points against UCLA in the Final Four
• 35 points against Iowa in the consolation game

Carroll was scooped up by the Warriors with the first overall pick in 1980 and spent a decade in the NBA before becoming a philanthropist and author specializing in financial advice.

Austin Carr: 158

Austin Carr holds the record for the most points ever scored in an NCAA Tournament game with the 61 he racked up during Notre Dame’s run in 1970, where he took full advantage of the three contests where he had:

• 61 points against Ohio
• 52 points against Kentucky in the Sweet Sixteen
• 45 points against Iowa in the Elite Eight

Carr headed back to South Bend for one last ride with the Fighting Irish before the Cavaliers got him with the first overall pick in 1971.

He spent the first nine seasons of an 11-year NBA career in Cleveland and ended up working as a television broadcaster for their games after retiring.

Juan Dixon: 155

Maryland made it to March Madness during all four seasons Juan Dixon played for the Terrapins, but he really rose to the occasion during his senior year in 2002 by leading them to a title with:

• 29 points against Siena
• 29 points against Wisconsin
• 19 points against Kentucky in the Sweet Sixteen
• 27 points against UConn in the Elite Eight
• 33 points against Kansas in the Final Four
• 18 points against Indiana in the national championship

That showing helped Dixon boost his draft stock, and the Wizards took him with the 17th overall pick that year.

He spent nine years in the league before turning his attention to coaching and was most recently the skipper at Coppin State.

Jay Williams: 154

You didn’t think you were getting out of here without someone from Duke popping up, did you?