NCAA basketball: Ranking every national champion this century: Is Baylor the best?

10. Louisville Cardinals, 2013

Final Record: 35-5 | Def. Michigan 82-76

Expectations were high for Rick Pitino’s Louisville Cardinals coming into the 2012-13 season as they were ranked No. 2 in the preseason polls. An early stumble against Duke — then a non-conference game as the Cardinals were still in the Big East — and a three-game skid in conference play in January, however, seemed to kill some of the hype around this group.

Yet, the team led by Russ Smith, Peyton Siva, Gorgui Dieng and eventual Most Outstanding Player Luke Hancock shored things up down the stretch. They won 10 of their last 11 regular-season games before going into the Big East Tournament and asserting their dominance by grabbing the conference title and earning a No. 1-seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Once in the tournament, Louisville made one statement after another leading up to the Final Four, winning all but one game by at least 20 points, including an 85-63 triumph over Duke to avenge the early-season loss. They survived upstart Wichita State in the Final Four and then worked their way to the six-point win over Michigan playing a strong, balanced brand of basketball fueled by an elite defense.

Officially, the Cardinals have vacated this title thanks to the Rick Pitino scandal that came to light a few years later. But for the purposes of these rankings, they kick off the top 10 winners of the century as, even though the circumstances now look quite shady in retrospect, this was a high-quality team.