NCAA basketball: 25 best college basketball teams of all time

10. 1989-1990 UNLV Runnin’ Rebels

Some college basketball programs fly across the sky like a shooting star, burning bright and disappearing as fast as it came. The UNLV Runnin’ Rebels of the late 1980s and early 1990s firmly fit that bill.

The college basketball world was taken by storm by the Runnin’ Rebels, who built a powerhouse in Las Vegas. Head coach Jerry Tarkanian assembled a tremendous amount of talent, including Greg Anthony and Larry Johnson, to turn UNLV into a winner.

The 1990 team didn’t appear to be a dominant squad early on, posting a 14-4 record through the end of January, but they turned on the afterburners after that. A 124-90 win over Utah State set the tone for the rest of the season where the Runnin’ Rebels basically obliterated the opposition.

The NCAA Tournament was basically a cakewalk from UNLV, who survived a scare from Ball State in the Sweet 16 but were never pushed again. The Runnin’ Rebels smoked Duke in the National Championship Game, winning by 30 to claim the program’s first title.

Tarkanian’s team was even better in 1991, running an unbeaten record all the way to the Final Four before getting upset by Duke. If that edition of the Runnin’ Rebels went undefeated they might have been even higher on the list.