NCAA Basketball: Ranking the top 25 programs of all time
By Brian Rauf
Best NCAA Basketball programs of all-time: 19. Virginia basketball
The reigning national champions move into our top 20 with that championship and a high level of success that spans multiple decades.
After making their first NCAA Tournament appearance in 1976, Virginia was dominant with star big man Ralph Sampson in the early 1980s, winning their first ACC regular-season titles (1981-83) and earning their first Final Four berth in 1981. They made it back in 1984, capping a run of four straight Sweet 16 appearances.
The Wahoos added a Sweet 16 appearance in 1993 and an Elite Eight appearance in 1995 (they won the ACC again that year, too), but those were the last major accomplishments by the program until head coach Tony Bennett took over in 2009.
In the past decade under Bennett, Virginia has won four ACC regular-season titles, two ACC tournaments, made two Elite Eight appearances and, of course, won the program’s first national title.
There is bad to go along with the good – Virginia suffered arguably the biggest upset in the sport’s history when they lost to Chaminade, then an NAIA school, in 1982 and became the first team to lose to a No. 16 seed in the NCAA Tournament when UMBC upset them in 2018 – but UVA’s understated consistent success earns them a spot on this list.