NCAA basketball: 25 best college basketball teams of all time

NEW ORLEANS, LA - APRIL 02: (L-R) Darius Miller #1, Anthony Davis #23, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist #14, Terrence Jones #3 and Marquis Teague #25 of the Kentucky Wildcats walk on the court in the second half against the Kansas Jayhawks in the National Championship Game of the 2012 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome on April 2, 2012 in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images) /

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Best college basketball teams of all time

Mandatory Credit: Jeff Gross /Allsport /

20. 1970-1971 UCLA Bruins

When you win nine national championships it’s fair to say you will have plenty of teams that qualify for the list of the greatest all-time college basketball teams. Fans of college hoops are familiar with UCLA, so it should come as no shock that this is the first of several editions of the Bruins to make the list.

All of those entries come from the Bruins’ dynastic run over the college basketball world in the late 60s and early 70s. We’ll start with the 1970-1971 UCLA team, which picked up the program’s sixth consecutive national championship.

Those Bruins went 29-1 on the year with their lone loss coming at Notre Dame in January. UCLA responded by picking up a win over UC Santa Barbara in the very next game, the first of what would become an 88-game winning streak which still stands as the longest winning streak in men’s college basketball history.

John Wooden’s team featured future pros like Henry Bibby, Steve Patterson, and Sidney Wicks, who was the team’s star that season. Wicks took home three major National Player of the Year Awards in the process.

The Bruins’ run through the NCAA Tournament wasn’t smooth as UCLA was strongly tested by Long Beach State, Kansas and Villanova. UCLA won its final three games of the tournament by eight points or less, but they still managed to get the job done and win the championship in the Astrodome.