There was a team that played in the NCAA tournament that entered undefeated, did not lose a game and did not win the tournament. Who was it?
Wow. This is a great question. I don't know but hope folks don't just use some search engine. I'll be thinking about this one for awhile. LOL!
Are we talking about the year Kentucky took bribe money to lose the NIT but won the NCAA? Or perhaps Temple, back in the day. The NIT used to be a bigger deal than the NCAAT in the 40s and one year Temple won the NIT was voted the champ. Can't recall the NCAA winner that particular year, maybe Bradley, Kentucky, or Long Island. Sorry I'm not sure which one it is but would not be surprised if its within one of these stories. Also thinking about the San Francisco Dons from those days was a frequent winner. Good question though.
UNLV- the Tark Unless I misunderstood the question, because they did lose the championship. So, I agree it would have to go back to the NIT years, but that is not in my memory. I was in my -20s.
“Played” so not an aborted tournament (and I don’t think there was an undefeated team in 2020 anyway). So maybe started and had to withdraw? Never heard of that, and I think I would have. So that pretty much leaves they didn’t win the tournament because they were actually knocked out by a bunch of cheaters, and that “loss” was later vacated. Okay, there have been a few prominent teams who later had their “wins” vacated (Pitino’s back at St. John’s this year, right?). And at that point, I started doing research, and eventually came up with the answer. I actually remember the vacated part, but didn’t know about the undefeated team. Impressive feat, even if they were not afforded the chance to advance.
2020 was my first thought as well. San Diego St was undefeated for a while but lost the MWC title game. But the tournament was cancelled before anyone played in it so that's not the answer. My next thought was a team like CCNY back in the day that tried to play in both the NIT and NCAA tournament, and then maybe withdrew from the middle of the NCAA tournament to go to the NIT (or something like that). I haven't tried looking up if this actually happened, probably not... Your "vacated loss" scenario makes sense. But I didn't think this applied to any of the recent undefeated teams that lost in the tourney like Gonzaga 2021 (Baylor), Kentucky 2015 (Wisconsin), or UNLV 1991 (Duke). I'm guessing the answer goes way further back, before my time...
Yep, that's why I thought of them. I just don't know if there are other examples of CCNY or teams in other years playing the NIT and NCAA tournament the same year and whether that's the answer to this trivia question.
What am I missing with UNLV? They entered the 1991 tournament undefeated, lost to Duke in the semifinals in a huge upset, and Duke hasn't vacated those wins AFAIK.
I don't think losses get vacated, just wins. So a loss would still stand. It's from the school of Vernon Maxwell Accounting where he didn't score the points, but the points he didn't score still count towards the team's total points for those games. Go GATORS! ,WESGATORS
