NCAA Basketball: Ranking the last 25 NCAA Tournament champions

13) 2003 Syracuse Orangemen

Record: 30-5, 13-3 in Big East

The Carmelo Anthony year went exceptionally well for the Syracuse Orangemen, as they won the Big East regular-season title and then the national championship. This is the first and only national title of head coach Jim Boeheim’s career.

Early on, it looked like this group would fall short of expectations, as the season got off to a rocky start. Two players transferred, another was suspended for almost the entirety of non-conference play and they lost to the Memphis Tigers in their season opener. They also lost to the Rutgers Scarlet Knight during the year, not exactly ideal for a championship contender.

Still, they went 13-3 in a very good Big East and beat four teams on their way to being crowned champs. All of their losses also came away from home, something to be expected for a team that relied on as many young players as they did.

What followed was one of the most impressive NCAA Tournament runs we’ve ever seen. Led by Anthony, who seemed to be a 20-point, 10-rebound machine in March, Syracuse beat two No. 1 seeds on their way to the national championship game.

Once there, they beat a Kansas Jayhawks team headlined by Kirk Heinrich, Nick Collison and Roy Williams that was considered to be on the shortlist of favorites to win the tournament.

Anthony also headlines a good deal of talent that was on the roster. Hakim Warrick was a first-round pick and spent a number of years in the NBA, while Gerry McNamara proved to be a high-quality college point guard before joining Syracuse’s coaching staff.