The 9 Biggest Blowouts In The History Of The Final Four

The Final Four features a quartet of teams that have earned the right to call themselves one of the best in the country, and you would consequently expect most of the games between them to be fairly competitive affairs. That ends up being the case more often than not, but there have been plenty of situations where one school has handed its opponent a pretty embarrassing loss.

These are the most lopsided games that have transpired during the Final Four at the NCAA Tournament

Watching one team wipe the floor with the one they’re facing off against in the Final Four can be an entertaining experience if you root for the victor, despise the loser, or had a non-busted bracket that relied on the winning team to come out on top to keep your hopes of winning a pool alive.

However, I think most neutral fans would prefer to be treated to some nailbiters while watching the last four teams in the running compete for a national championship. Unfortunately, that can’t be the case every single time.

With the Final Four set to unfold this weekend, I decided to do a deep dive into the college basketball history books to take a look at the biggest blowouts that have transpired during that stage and put together a list of the men’s teams that have won (and lost) by more than 25 points.

Before we dive in, I should note the NCAA Tournament was played for the first time in 1939, but the “Final Four” was the second round until it expanded to 16 teams in 1951. I’m consequently going to use that as the cutoff for this list, which would be longer if you included Kentucky’s 29-point victory over Illinois in 1949 and Oklahoma A&M’s 68-41 beatdown of Arkansas in 1945.

Ohio State vs. St. Joseph’s (1961): 26 Points

Ohio State eked out a one-point win over Louisville in its first game of the NCAA Tournament in 1961, but it had much less trouble with a Kentucky team it dispatched by 13. St. Joseph’s, on the other hand, opened things up with a 72-67 victory over Princeton and a 96-86 defeat of Wake Forest.

However, the Hawks (who would eventually vacate those first two wins over a points-shaving scandal) got steamrolled by the Buckeyes in the semifinals after ending up on the wrong end of a 95-69 result. Ohio State got the chance to play for a title, but they were outmatched by Cincinnati.

Kansas vs. Washington (1953): 26 Points

Kansas has historically been one of the best college basketball programs in the country, and that was the case in 1953.

The Jayhawks opened things up with eight-point and six-point wins over Oklahoma City and Oklahoma A&M, respectively, and they earned the right to face off against a Washington team that had beaten Seattle by 22 and Santa Clara by 12.

Based on those results, you might have thought the Cougars would’ve had the edge, but they were relegated to the third-place game (which they won) after falling by a score of 79-53. Kansas faced off against Indiana for the title, but the Hoosiers secured it by a single point.

Purdue vs. UNC (1969): 27 Points

Purdue opened up its 1969 NCAA Tournament run with a bang with a 20-point win over Miami (Ohio), but it had a bit more trouble with a Marquette team it was only able to beat by two. North Carolina had to survive a couple of close calls to make it to the Final Four, as they beat Duquesne by one before topping Davidson by two.

The Boilermakers ended up returning to their initial form, as the Tar Heels fell in a 92-65 game before losing to Drake by 20 in the consolation contest.

The celebration was also short-lived for a Purdue team that earned the right to face off against a UCLA team that was coming off back-to-back championships and led by the man who’d eventually be known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and the Bruins secured the threepeat with a 92-72 win.

UNLV vs. Duke (1990): 30 Points

This is the first entry on this list where both schools had to survive the modern gauntlet to not only get to the Final Four but the national championship game where they ended up meeting (and also the first one where the schools were officially seeded).

Duke, a three-seed, had a couple of close calls against St. John’s and UConn (as well as a couple of blowouts at the expense of Richmond and Arkansas) on their way to the title showdown, but Ball State was really the only team that gave top-seeded UNLV trouble before falling by two points in the Sweet Sixteen.

The Blue Devils were ultimately unable to hang with the Runnin’ Rebels, as the latter’s 30-point margin of victory in the 103-73 rout remains the biggest disparity in a national championship game. However, it also lit a fire under Duke’s rear end, as they returned the following year to win the first of two straight titles.

UCLA vs. Houston (1968): 32 Points

I’ve already alluded to the dominance of a UCLA team that went on the most impressive run in the history of college basketball under the guidance of John Wooden; the Bruins won ten titles in the span of 12 seasons between 1963 and 1975.

This blowout transpired a year before the aforementioned one, and UCLA didn’t have much trouble with New Mexico State or Santa Clara en route to their second-straight Final Four.

They also didn’t have any trouble with a Houston squad that averaged a 23-point margin of victory against the three teams they beat to get there (including a 35-point win over TCU), as they cruised to a 101-69 win before beating UNC by 23 for yet another title.

Kansas vs Marquette (2003): 33 Points

Kansas is the only team that makes multiple appearances on this list, and it earned another spot thanks to what transpired 50 years after the game that landed the team its first one.

The Jayhawks entered the 2003 NCAA Tournament as a two-seed and got a bit of a scare from a Utah State squad they only beat by three points in the first round. They rebounded with a 32-point massacre of Arizona State, then topped Duke by four and Arizona by three to get to the Final Four.

They ended up meeting Marquette, a three-seed that survived a trio of close games before making it to the Final Four with an 83-69 statement win over top-seeded Kentucky in the Elite Eight. However, the Jayhawks ended the Golden Eagles’ season with a 94-61 win before losing to Carmelo Anthony and Syracuse in the title game.

Cincinnati vs. Oregon State (1963): 34 Points

Cincinnati won both of its first two games in the 1963 NCAA Tournament by single-digit margins, and that was also the case with an Oregon State team that needed to win three games to get to the Final Four and did so with an 83-65 victory over ASU.

The Beavers were no match for the Bearcats, who punched their ticket to the title game with an 80-46 win. As was the case with most of the teams on this list, they were unable to get it done with a championship on the line, although they took Loyola–Chicago to overtime before losing by two.

Michigan State vs. Penn (1979): 34 Points

The 1979 NCAA Tournament is best known for sparking the legendary rivalry between Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, the second of whom played for a Michigan State team that met the former’s Indiana State in the national championship.

The Spartans, a two-seed, had double-digit wins over all of their opponents leading up to the Final Four, and that theme firmly continued when they encountered a ninth-seeded Penn squad that managed to go on a wildly unexpected Cinderella run.

However, it came to an end in decisive fashion with a 101-67 loss before Michigan State won a title.

Villanova vs. Oklahoma (2016): 44 Points

Prior to 2016, no team had even come close to losing a Final Four game by more than 40 points, and there was no reason to think Oklahoma would be the first when you consider they were listed as two-point underdogs against Villanova in the semifinals.

Both teams were two-seeds, and the Sooners were able to keep things close for the first 10 minutes of the first half before the Wildcats began to pull away. They had a 14-point lead heading into the locker room, and they outscored their opponents by 30 points in the second half to secure the most lopsided win in Final Four history with a 95-51 result.

Villanova had a bit more trouble with UNC in the title game, but they pulled out the 77-74 win to get their second national championship.