Signing Dates

Nov 10 2010

Players can verbally commit to a school at any time. In fact, in rare cases, players have selected a college while still in eighth grade. But letters of intent -- which officially end the recruiting process and bind player to school -- must be signed during specific signing periods for each recruiting year.

For recruits entering school for the 2011-12 academic year, the signing dates are as follows:

	Initial Signing Date	Final Signing Date
Early Period	November 11, 2010	November 17, 2010
Regular Period	April 13, 2010	May 18, 2010

Signing dates for the 2012-13 academic year are not yet available.

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League Drops Ultimatum, Returns to Bargaining Table

Last week's labor talks came to a screeching halt when Spurs owner Peter Holt reportedly told union representatives that a 50-50 split of basketball related income was a take it or leave it proposition. That demand has apparently been dropped, at least temporarily, as the NBA and NBPA have re-opened discussions.

Can the different factions find common ground this time?

It's difficult to be optimistic, but there are positive signs if you look hard enough. As TrueHoop's Henry Abbott points out, union head Billy Hunter never said he wouldn't accept a 50-50 split of BRI, even as he was walking away from the bargaining table last Thursday. The implication is pretty clear; the union might be willing to accept that financial proposal, but not without significant concessions from the owners on "system issues."

I can see Hunter and the union signing off on a 50-50 deal, but only if the league also agrees to a less-punitive luxury tax system, keeps some semblance of the Larry Bird exception and comes to some compromise on contract lengths. But at this point, it is hard to imagine hard-line owners like Holt or Cleveland's Dan Gilbert signing off on that sort of deal.

Of course, there are other owners - notably Miami's Micky Arison, the Knicks' James Dolan, the Lakers' Jerry Buss and Dallas' Mark Cuban - that are reportedly eager to make a deal and get back to business. They could potentially take a larger role in these proceedings - and rightfully so, given that they'll be the biggest contributors to the league's new revenue-sharing plan.

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Owners' Ultimatum Scuttles NBA Lockout Talks

With the help of a federal mediator, the NBA and NBPA seemed to be inching towards a settlement that would end the lockout that has paralyzed the league since June. The players were looking for a 53 percent share of basketball related income. The owners were offering something closer to 49 percent. That's not that big a gap, right?

Wrong.

Possibly emboldened by the fact that NBA commissioner David Stern was home with the flu, the owners collectively decided that they've already been too generous in their offers, and that a 50-50 split of league revenue was a "take it or leave it" offer. Ever conscious of appearances, the owner chosen to relay this message was Portland's Paul Allen - the Microsoft mogul with a personal net worth estimated at $13.2 billion.

Why the change of tune? Spurs owner Peter Holt reportedly told the players, "you haven't suffered enough."

Classy, that.

The union seems willing to discuss a 50-50 arrangement, but only if their other conditions - issues relating to the salary cap, player contract lengths and year-to-year increases and the like - are met. But the owners wouldn't even discuss those "system issues" without an agreement to split BRI evenly. And with that catch 22 firmly in place, talks fell apart.

I've been in the owners' corner for some time now. Or, perhaps more accurately, I don't see how the players can generate much leverage in this situation... and fighting for an extra percentage point of BRI doesn't make much sense when a couple weeks of cancelled games wipes out any financial gain. But I certainly wouldn't sign a deal under these circumstances.

(And to those pushing decertification of the union and a battle in the courts, understand that such a strategy would almost certainly wipe out this season, and wouldn't necessarily win the players a better deal.)

What happens next? It seems there are two possibilities. David Stern could re-emerge from his sick bed, get his owners in line, and pick the negotiations where the mediator left off. Or some of the more moderate owners - Jerry Buss, Mark Cuban, Mickey Arison and James Dolan have repeatedly been mentioned as wanting to make a deal - could step up and stop allowing their most hawkish brethren to drive the process.

Either way, it seems inevitable that more games will be cancelled.

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What is a Redshirt?

Definition: A redshirt is a player who sits out an entire season of his or her sport in order to preserve a year's worth of eligibility. The term can be used as a noun (He's a redshirt), a verb (He's going to redshirt this season) or an adjective (The redshirt freshman is going to start at quarterback).

"Redshirt freshman" refers to a player in his second year of college -- an academic sophomore -- in his or her first year of athletic competition.

There are a number of reasons why a player might take a redshirt year:

• He might feel he needs an extra year to develop physically before competing at the Division I level
• He might want the extra time to get acclimated to the college, the team, or the system
• He might not have an opportunity to play right away due to depth at his position, and might take a redshirt season rather than spend a year on the bench.

Redshirt players can practice with their teams, but cannot compete in games.

Students can take redshirt years in any sport, but it is most common in football. The term is derived from the red practice jerseys traditionally worn by players not on the active roster.

See Also:

Players who miss a year due to injury may apply for medical redshirt status.

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NBA Fantasy Cheat Sheets

Here are the players you want in your fantasy NBA league - overall cheat sheets and position-by-position rankings for the top fantasy options in the NBA.

Players are ranked in terms of overall value in an eight-category (points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, FT%, FG% and three pointers made) rotisserie-style league. Allowances have been made for positional scarcity -- players who qualify at center are worth a bit more. Injuries and concerns over playing time are also considered.

The Top 100 Fantasy Players in the NBA

Elsa/Getty Images

The top 100 players in fantasy basketball, regardless of position. Would it surprise you to learn that LeBron James is number one?

Point Guard Cheat Sheet

Bob Levey/Getty Images

Point guards will be your primary source of assists -- one of the eight cardinal categories tracked in most leagues -- making it important to draft at least one and possibly two of the better point guard options.

Shooting Guard Cheat Sheet

Doug Benc/Getty Images

"Shooting" guard, or "off" guard as they're often called, is something of a misnomer in today's NBA. Lots of so-called "off" guards spend as much time running the offense as the nominal point guards.

Small Forward Cheat Sheet

Stephen Dunn/Getty Images

NBA small forwards are a disparate bunch. There are threes who play like oversized point guards -- Toronto's Hedo Turkoglu, for example. There are pure scorers, like Oklahoma City's Kevin Durant, and oustanding shooters like Orlando's Rashard Lewis, and "combo forwards" who are comfortable out on the perimeter or in the paint. And then there's LeBron... he can do everything.

Power Forward Cheat Sheet

Doug Pensinger/Getty Images

It's easy, when ranking fantasy power forwards, to attach too much weight to the double-doubles, the twenty-and-tens... but to be an elite option in fantasy, your power forward needs to do more. Look for players who shoot a very high percentage from the floor, and who will block a reasonable number of shots at minimum.

Center Cheat Sheet

Harry How/Getty Images

Center is trickiest position in fantasy basketball. It's easily the thinnest position -- there simply aren't that many great centers in the league these days, and that's particularly true this year with Yao Ming sidelined for the entire season.

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Sixteen Hours of Negotiations, Nothing to Report

Apparently George Cohen is a "lock both sides in a room and don't let them out until they reach an agreement" style of negotiator. The federal mediator met with the NBA and NBPA separately on Monday, then brought both sides together on Tuesday for an epic meeting that lasted sixteen hours and didn't break up until 2am.

The sides re-convened on Wednesday morning at 10 to continue talks.

The fact that they continue to talk can only be taken as a positive, but both sides have agreed not to discuss the proceedings with the media for now.

The NBA's board of governors is scheduled to meet Wednesday evening and Thursday; with a little luck, they'll have the framework of a new labor agreement on their agenda.

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NBA Lockout: I'm From the Government, and I'm Here to Help

A federal mediator will attempt to jump-start the stalled NBA labor discussions this week.

George Cohen, head of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service will meet separately with representatives from the league and players union today, and bring both sides together tomorrow in an attempt to end the three-month lockout that has already forced the cancellation of about regular-season 100 games and the entire preseason schedule.

Cohen's shooting percentage is pretty impressive; according to his bio, 86 percent of the cases mediated by the FMCS were settled. But as Newsday's Alan Hahn is fond of pointing out, the FMCS got involved in the NHL's 2004 lockout talks just days before the plug was pulled on the entire season.

NBA commissioner David Stern took to the airwaves last week to discuss the league's position on a wide range of lockout-related topics, from finances, growth projections and splitting basketball related income to competitive balance, salary caps, luxury taxes and player contracts.

The players union hasn't done near as good a job staying "on message" - Wizards center JaVale McGee emerged from a meeting on Friday and told reporters "There's definitely some guys in there saying that they're ready to fold..." though union leadership disputed that contention.

Tuesday will be a very important day for the league. David Stern has said that if Tuesday's meetings don't yield a settlement - or at least significant progress towards one - he doesn't expect the league will be back in action by Christmas.

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CBA Discussions Break Down; NBA Cancels First Two Weeks of Regular Season

A last-ditch shot at saving a full 82-game 2011-12 NBA season found nothing but iron.

Talks between the league and players broke down late Monday night without solutions to the major economic or structural issues that will need to be resolved in the next collective bargaining agreement. Without a deal, the league announced that the first two weeks of the regular season will be canceled.

With no additional talks scheduled, it seems just a matter of time before more games get the axe.

Current State of Negotiations

Though both sides have been exceedingly tight-lipped about the negotiations, enough rumors have emerged to paint a general picture of where things stand:

• Economics: The biggest issue yet to be resolved: how will the league and players split over $4 billion in annual revenue? Under the collective bargaining agreement that expired on June 30, the players were guaranteed a 57 percent share. Owners initially pushed to knock the players' share down to the mid-40s. In more recent discussions, they've pushed what David Stern has called a 50-50 split, though once you factor in changes to the basketball related income formula it's actually closer to 49-51 in favor of the owners. The player have offered to take 53 percent and not a penny less.
• Salary Cap and Luxury Tax: The owners' initial proposal called for a hard salary cap. More recent proposals have softened that stance - somewhat. They've proposed a system with an escalating luxury tax on salaries above a certain point - reportedly as high as $4 for every $1 of payroll more than $15 million above the cap. The players reportedly believe a tax system that punitive would prevent about 28 of 30 teams from spending and regard it as a hard cap by another name. At this point, it's a non-starter with the NBPA.
• Cap Exceptions: This seems to be one of very few areas where the league and union are on the same page. The mid-level salary cap exception will reportedly be restructured significantly - no more $30 million over five years for the likes of Jared Jeffries - and be worth less money for fewer years going forward. Other exceptions may be eliminated completely, assuming teams retain the ability to sign players at the league minimum even when over the cap.

What happens next?

Unclear. It seems the primary combatants in this labor battle are going to take a step back before re-engaging. Of course, they don't have a lot of time. Based on the schedule David Stern has employed to this point, the league believes it will need approximately one month from agreement to tip off; that means we have about ten days before the league cancels the rest of the November schedule.

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Fantasy NCAA

Fantasy basketball is a fairly simple game. You select a team and fill out a roster. You succeed or fail based on how well your players perform in certain categories -- usually points, field goal percentage, free-throw percentage, three pointers, rebounds, assists, and steals. The team that performs best across all categories wins. There are two basic scoring systems -- you either tally scores for the season, or run scoring on a head-to-head basis for a set period of time and then tally wins and losses against the other players in your league.

Now, if you're setting up a fantasy NBA league, that's basically all you'd need to know. You go to NBA.com or one of the big fantasy sports portals like Yahoo!, ESPN.com, or CBS Sportsline. Sites like those make running a league easy, and are generally free or very inexpensive.

But you won't find a fantasy college hoops game on any of 'em.

March Madness brackets? No problem. But an actual fantasy league, drafting players, following their stats... no dice.

College Ballplayers and Licensing

For the most part, sites running big-time fantasy games pay a licensing fee to the league or players association or both. Everyone's a professional, everyone makes money, everyone's happy. When you start putting college players into the mix, things get more complicated. Remember, the NCAA makes it near-impossible for college athletes to hold a part-time job, let alone make money for endorsing products -- even if the products have nothing to do with their NCAA sport. So any payment to the athletes is out.

Why don't the institutions license the names? They aren't usually shy about collecting money any way they can. But when it comes to using actual player names and likenesses, the NCAA and its member institutions have generally decided to avoid the issue. As a result, you can't buy a jersey with a specific player's name and number, college hoops video games identify players by number and position only, and the big fantasy sports sites don't offer college hoops games.

What's a Fan to Do?

Fear not, you have options. There are sites that offer a more-or-less full fantasy hoops experience with college rosters. Onroo.com offers a free game, and U-Sports.com has a version that may be deeper and richer, but that costs $19.95 per team.

You could also kick it old school by assembling a team of your all-time favorite players over at WhatIfSports.com.

And if neither of those options are appealing, you could always run your own league.

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Decertification

Definition: Decertification of a union means that union loses the power to collectively bargain on behalf of its members. Such a move has some potential benefits - the NFL Players Association decertified in an attempt to avoid a lockout - and a number of risks attached.

The biggest benefit is legal. Interactions between unions and management are governed by labor law. Many of the collectively-bargained elements of the NBA/NBPA relationship - the salary cap and NBA draft for example - are perfectly legal under that set of rules.

The relationship between the league and players in the absence of a union would be governed under anti-trust law. And that gives the players a wide range of options, including an anti-trust lawsuit.

On the other hand, decertifying also means the NBPA would be giving up a lot of benefits they've achieved through collective bargaining, such as minimum salaries, pensions and insurance. And the legal benefits are no sure thing; the league could argue that the NBPA is using decertification as a short-term negotiating tactic.

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Basketball Related Income (BRI)

Definition: Basketball Related Income - BRI, for short - is a term used to describe most of the revenue generated by NBA teams. BRI includes revenue generated by:

• Ticket Sales (regular season, exhibition and playoffs)
• Television Contracts (ESPN, TNT, etc.)
• Concessions
• Parking
• "Temporary" Stadium advertising

BRI also includes a portion of the revenues generated by stadium naming rights deals, luxury suites and "fixed" advertising signage.

BRI, the Salary Cap and the CBA

The BRI number is important because it is used, under the current NBA collective bargaining agreement, to set the league's annual salary cap. Under the deal set to expire on June 30, 2011, the players receive 57 percent of BRI as their salaries.

The owners object to that split, partly because BRI does is based on gross revenue. Expenses are not factored in. A team can increase attendance by spending more on marketing and promotions; the players get the benefit from the increased attendance, but don't have to share in the investment that generated that revenue.

The NBA's initial proposal for a new collective bargaining agreement reportedly included a 61-39 split of BRI in favor of the owners.

Examples:

One of the biggest issues to be settled in the NBA's next collective bargaining agreement: how will the league and players decide to split basketball related income?

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NBA Lockout

At its heart, this dispute is about money. (Shocking, right? Hope you were sitting down for that revelation.) The owners think the players are getting too much of it. The players are pretty happy with their share of the pie, and aren't about to give any back.

The amount of money the players receive in salary is set, in the existing collective bargaining agreement, at 51 percent of "basketball related income" or BRI. BRI includes just about every revenue stream, from tickets to parking to broadcast rights to concessions, though revenue-sharing payments and expansion fees are excluded. (For a complete rundown, check out Larry Coon's invaluable Salary Cap FAQ site.)

Owners are quick to point out that the BRI formula is based on gross revenue; when they spend additional money to promote ticket sales, etc., they eat into their own share of the pie but the players don't take the same hit.

That's one of the reasons -- according to league accounting -- that NBA teams lost a combined $370 million last season.

The players aren't buying that story, essentially accusing the league of using Enron-esque accounting to generate those figures. They may have a point; after all, if NBA teams are such money pits, why did the Warriors sell for a record $450 million last summer?

The battle over these numbers figures to be one of the biggest and hardest-fought. After all, the owners and players can't decide how to divide the revenue pie until they determine how big a pie they're sharing.

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Basketball Related Income (BRI)

Definition: Basketball Related Income - BRI, for short - is a term used to describe most of the revenue generated by NBA teams. BRI includes revenue generated by:

• Ticket Sales (regular season, exhibition and playoffs)
• Television Contracts (ESPN, TNT, etc.)
• Concessions
• Parking
• "Temporary" Stadium advertising

BRI also includes a portion of the revenues generated by stadium naming rights deals, luxury suites and "fixed" advertising signage.

BRI, the Salary Cap and the CBA

The BRI number is important because it is used, under the current NBA collective bargaining agreement, to set the league's annual salary cap. Under the deal set to expire on June 30, 2011, the players receive 57 percent of BRI as their salaries.

The owners object to that split, partly because BRI does is based on gross revenue. Expenses are not factored in. A team can increase attendance by spending more on marketing and promotions; the players get the benefit from the increased attendance, but don't have to share in the investment that generated that revenue.

The NBA's initial proposal for a new collective bargaining agreement reportedly included a 61-39 split of BRI in favor of the owners.

Examples:

One of the biggest issues to be settled in the NBA's next collective bargaining agreement: how will the league and players decide to split basketball related income?

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NBA Lockout: Are NBA Teams Really Losing Money?

Jul 5 2011

According to the NBA, 22 of 30 franchises are losing money. According to the NBPA, that assertion is... well, "baloney" would be a polite way of summarizing.

Who's right?

There's an increasingly-large pile of evidence to suggest that the league is guilty of... at the very least... creative accounting.

Exhibit A: Deadspin takes on the New Jersey Nets

Deadspin.com obtained three years' worth of financial data from the New Jersey Nets. It's not hard to imagine why such a team might be losing money; it can be difficult to generate fan interest when everyone knows you're moving. Still, Tommy Craggs' breakdown does a good job of showing how tax lawyers and aggressive accounting can take a slight profit and turn it into a substantial loss.

Exhibit B: Larry Coon Balances the Books

Writing for ESPN.com, noted NBA salary cap-ologist Larry Coon explains how expenses totally unrelated to the day-to-day operations of a team figure into profits and losses. For example:

$41.5 million of the Nets' $49 million operating loss in 2005, and $40.2 million of its $57.4 million in 2006, is there simply to make the books balance. It is part of the purchase price of the team, being expensed each year. This doesn't mean they cooked their books, or that they tried to pull a fast one on the players. It is part of the generally accepted accounting practice to transfer expenses from the acquisition to the profit and loss over a certain time period. However, it's an argument that doesn't hold water in a discussion with (Billy) Hunter and the players association, who would claim that the Nets didn't really "lose" a combined $106.4 million in those two years, but rather that they lost $7.5 million and $17.2 million, respectively.

Exhibit C: Nate Silver's Skepticism

Another respected number-cruncher, Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight, also raised a skeptical eyebrow at the league's claims of financial woe. Using data from Forbes magazine and other financial publications, Silver estimates that the league as a whole is still profitable - but that high-revenue teams like the Lakers, Knicks and Bulls might be making enough to cover losses elsewhere.

Interestingly, Silver compares the NBA's current financial situation to that of Major League Baseball, just before the 1994 strike. According to Forbes, about one-third of the league was in the red in 1993, and half the league's profits came from just four teams. But instead of implementing a salary cap, baseball came out of that negotiation with an enhanced revenue-sharing structure that seems to be serving the league very well.

I suspect the players union - and quite a few of the owners - would sign up for a similar system right now.

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NBA Lockout Update

Imagine a bridge that reaches 90 percent of the way across a deep chasm. You can walk most of the way across - so close, you can almost feel the earth on the other side. But you just can't get there. Ninety percent of a bridge is about as helpful as no bridge at all.

The same could be said for the NBA and NBPA's lockout negotiations. The sides are closer to an agreement than they've been at any point - but their difference of opinion is still wide enough that the league is set to cancel the remainder of the preseason. And the first two-week portion of the regular season is next on the chopping block.

The sides have reportedly made substantial progress on many issues. The union appears willing to accept a new payroll structure that replaces the current soft salary cap with an escalating luxury tax intended to curb payroll growth, and has been offered an "out" in any new CBA after seven years - which would give the players the opportunity to renegotiate at a time when the league should be enjoying the benefits of a new and potentially-lucrative television deal.

The stumbling block is money - specifically, the portion of basketball related income (BRI) that the players will receive in the new deal. Under the terms of the CBA that expired in June, the players received 57 percent of BRI. The owners' initial proposal sought to reduce that share to something in the neighborhood of 45 percent. As things stand, the owners are offering 47 percent, and the players are demanding 53.

The owners have characterized their offer as a 50-50 split of revenue, but that proposal includes a major re-working of the BRI formula to include expenses. Under the last deal, BRI included a wide range of revenue streams but did not deduct any expenses. The fact that players enjoy the benefits of increasing revenue without sharing in the risk - increased marketing expenses needed to fill seats and generate that revenue, for example - has long been a contentious issue in these negotiations.

With talks breaking down, powerful player agents are expected to renew their push to decertify the NBPA and take the league to court. But they do not seem to have enough support from union the rank-and-file to go that route. Not yet, anyway. Decertification would give the players more options in a court fight with the league; some believe that would mean additional leverage in the ongoing negotiations. But lawsuits could take months - even years - to resolve. NBPA leadership has said they'll consider that option, but Billy Hunter and Derek Fisher remain committed to reaching a new deal at the bargaining table.

League commissioner David Stern has announced that the league will cancel the first two weeks of the regular season if a deal is not reached by Monday, October 10.

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The NBA's Worst Player Contracts

Aug 2 2011

The NBA's latest CBA proposal reportedly includes an "amnesty clause" - a one-time opportunity for teams to remove their worst contracts from the books.

NBA teams have had this opportunity once before. In 2005, teams were given the chance to waive a single player contract. Teams were still bound to pay the players' salary, and the salaries continued to count against the cap, but teams were freed from any obligation to pay luxury tax on those salaries.

That rule came to be known as the "Allan Houston Rule" - based on the general assumption that New York would jump at the opportunity to waive their oft-injured, high-priced guard. (In an ironic twist, Houston was not waived under the rule that bears his name - the Knicks gambled that Houston's injuries would prove to be career-ending, and that they'd get cap - and insurance - relief as a result. That turned out to be the team's savviest personnel move of the decade.)

The provision in the owners' CBA proposal may be similar, though it seems reasonable to assume that this amnesty clause would remove contracts from the salary cap number as well, especially if accompanied by a substantial reduction in the cap number or the elimination of cap "exceptions."

That's interesting for a couple of reasons. A big wave of amnesty-clause free agents would make the 2011 free-agent class a lot deeper -- and if we assume that the waived players would still collect money owed under their existing contracts, those new free agents might be willing to work for very little. It would also give teams that are struggling under the weight of some bad decisions to add some talent over the summer.

Which players would be impacted? A quick look at each team's payroll offers quite a few clues. (All salary figures are from the invaluable team payroll listings at HoopsHype.com.

The NBA's Worst Contracts: 2011-on

Atlanta: Joe Johnson's mammoth contract (which will pay him nearly $25 million in 2015-16) is generally regarded as the league's worst. But can the Hawks afford to part ways with their best player? Kirk Hinrich ($8 million in 2011-12) might be another candidate, given Jeff Teague's emergence in the playoffs.

Boston: The Celtics still have Rasheed Wallace on the books for over $6.7 million in 2011-12. He's the obvious choice.

Charlotte: Their draft-day trade with Milwaukee cleared Charlotte's ugliest contract - Stephen Jackson's - off the books. Corey Maggette is significantly overpaid, but at least his deal expires after the 2012-13 season.

Chicago: The Bulls are in excellent shape, payroll-wise; their core is locked up through 2012-13, and no player is making a really outrageous sum.

Cleveland: The Cavs would happily part ways with Antawn Jamison (owed over $15 million in 2011-12) or Baron Davis (owed nearly $29 million over the next two seasons).

Dallas: I suspect the Mavs would rather not have Brendan Haywood on the books for $42 million through the 2015-16 season, especially if it means losing their flexibility to re-sign Tyson Chandler and replace an aging Jason Kidd when the time comes.

Denver: The Nuggets only real contract extravagance is Al Harrington's deal, which runs through the 2014-15 season at an average of over $7 million per year.

Detroit: Joe Dumars has been trying to part ways with Rip Hamilton for the better part of a year - this could be his chance.

Golden State: A lot depends on what sort of team the Warriors want to be. If they decide to get away from their offense-first philosophy, they could re-think their long-term commitment to David Lee. Andris Biedrins could lose playing time to 2010-11 rookie Ekpe Udoh, and ($9 million/year through 2013-14) would also make a lot of sense.

Houston: Unloading Brad Miller on draft night cleared the Rockets' worst liability off the books. Hasheem Thabeet doesn't give the team much, but he's still on a rookie deal and could be gone after this season.

Indiana: Danny Granger is the only Pacer signed beyond next season (if you ignore a variety of player/team options). Indiana could clear a little space for 2011-12 by cutting ties with James Posey ($6.9 million) a year early.

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NCAA Champions

Here they are: the immortal teams of college hoops, from the 1939 Oregon Ducks -- with a starting five of Howard Hobson, John Dick, Urgel ‘Slim’ Wintermute, Laddie Gale, and Bobby Anet -- to the 2011 Connecticut Huskies.

For each year since the NCAA Tournament's inception in 1939, we've listed the teams that reached the Final Four and the tournament runner-up. The champion is listed in bold.

The first batch includes all teams since 1985 -- the year the tournament expanded to include 64 teams and the year Rollie Massimino's Villanova Wildcats pulled one of the biggest upsets in the history of March Madness, knocking off Patrick Ewing and the Georgetown Hoyas to win the title.

NCAA Champions and Final Four Teams, 1985 - present

Year	Final Four	Final Four	Opponent	Champion
2011	Virginia Commonwealth	Kentucky	Butler	Connecticut
2010	Michigan State	West Virginia	Butler	Duke
2009	Connecticut	Villanova	Michigan State	North Carolina
2008	UCLA	North Carolina	Memphis	Kansas
2007	UCLA	Georgetown	Ohio State	Florida
2006	George Mason	LSU	UCLA	Florida
2005	Michigan State	Louisville	Illinois	North Carolina
2004	Duke	Oklahoma State	Georgia Tech	Connecticut
2003	Texas	Marquette	Kansas	Syracuse
2002	Kansas	Oklahoma	Indiana	Maryland
2001	Maryland	Michigan State	Arizona	Duke
2000	Wisconsin	North Carolina	Florida	Michigan State
1999	Ohio State	Michigan State	Duke	Connecticut
1998	Stanford	North Carolina	Utah	Kentucky
1997	North Carolina	Minnesota	Kentucky	Arizona
1996	Massachusetts	Mississippi State	Syracuse	Kentucky
1995	Oklahoma State	North Carolina	Arkansas	UCLA
1994	Arizona	Florida	Duke	Arkansas
1993	Kansas	Kentucky	Michigan	North Carolina
1992	Indiana	Cincinnati	Michigan	Duke
1991	UNLV	North Carolina	Kansas	Duke
1990	Georgia Tech	Arkansas	Duke	UNLV
1989	Illinois	Duke	Seton Hall	Michigan
1988	Duke	Arizona	Oklahoma	Kansas
1987	UNLV	Providence	Syracuse	Indiana
1986	LSU	Kansas	Duke	Louisville
1985	Memphis State	St. John's	Georgetown	Villanova

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