5 best NCAA basketball teams that never won the national championship

4. Best NCAA basketball teams to never win a national championship: 2014-15 Kentucky Wildcats nearly went undefeated

One of the modern holy grails in college basketball is going undefeated to win a national championship. That feat hasn’t been accomplished since Indiana did it in 1976, which needed to win 32 games to take home the title.

The lengthening of the season, which now features six NCAA Tournament games as well as conference tournaments, means modern teams have to win close to 40 games without a loss to match Indiana’s feat. The closest approach to an undefeated season came in 2015 when the Kentucky Wildcats entered the Final Four without a loss.

Even though John Calipari’s team won a national championship three years earlier this edition of the Wildcats was absolutely loaded. The roster had future NBA stars like Karl-Anthony Towns and Devin Booker as well as elite role players like the Harrison twins, Dakari Johnson and Marcus Lee.

There was so much talent to go around that Calipari was able to run two separate units of players that could dominate opponents. Kentucky stampeded through the season and appeared to survive the traditional white-knuckler in the Elite Eight when they knocked off Notre Dame by two to advance to the Final Four.

Everything came crashing down there when Kentucky was upset by Wisconsin, losing 71-64 to finish two games shy of the first modern undefeated season. We will never know if Kentucky would have beaten Duke to complete the quest for perfection, but there is no doubt the 2014-15 Wildcats were one of the best teams that didn’t get a title for their efforts.