With March Madness starting up in less than a month, and teams locking in for a shot at making the dance, it seems a good idea to go back through all the victories and heartbreaks to find the 5 best moments in college basketball history. (Kentucky fans, read another article.)

Honorable Mention

Isaiah Thomas’s ‘COLD-BLOODED’ game-winner for the Pac 10 Championship.

The University of Washinton vs the University of Arizona. 2011 Pac 10 Championship. Overtime. It was a back-and-forth game for all 4 quarters and most of overtime until the last couple of seconds. The shot clock turned off, tied at 75 after Arizona’s Kevin Parrom made a three and it looked like Arizona would survive but soon-to-be hero Isaiah Thomas was coming up the court, pointing to where on the floor he wanted his teammates, every fan was on their feet. Those watching knew that Thomas was going to be the one shooting. Thomas crossovered to get some separation, but he needed more to get off the shot, so he stepped back faded away, burying the long 2 right as the buzzer sounded for the Huskies 2nd Pac 10 Championship title in back-to-back years.

Thomas ran over to the TV camera and yelled into the lens while play-by-play announcer Gus Johnson yelled, “And Washington wins it on a last-second J, coldblooded!” which was heard around the sports world. Thomas had 29 points on the night, and as Bob Wenzel said on the broadcast, “It’s fitting that he should be the one to make the basket in the end.”

Whenever Gus Johnson is on the call, viewers know what they are watching is going to be something iconic: the words he says at the time of the play are the chef’s kiss.

#5. Christian Laettner’s “The Shot” vs Kentucky in 1992

Duke is down by 1 (103-102) in the Elite 8 with 2.1 seconds left in overtime. All the Kentucky fans can feel the ticket to the final four game in their hands and are ready to celebrate.

Grant Hill inbounded the ball for Duke and threw it 79 feet to the other side of the floor to Laettner who had his back to the basket but that was not a big deal for him. He faked right, dribbled once, spun, and on the night when he was the leading scorer and leading rebounder he rose to the occasion and hit the mid-range jumper with time expiring to put the dagger in the heart of all the Kentucky players and fans.

Laettner was tackled by his teammates and fans as a celebration of winning. Laettner gave the Duke Blue Devils another breath at a chance at the National Title. The Blue Devils would end up winning that year after demolishing Michigan in the Championship game (71-51) and narrowly escaping Indiana (81-78) in the final 4.  The clutchness behind Laettner’s shot and the domino effect it had on that 1992 season will make it always a top moment in college basketball history.

#4. “Cardiac” Kemba Quarterfinal Buzzer Beater To Start The Title Run

After Uconn was written out the whole 2011 season, almost not making the top 68 and going to March Madness, it all turned around on March 9, 2011 when Kemba Walker might have made the biggest shot in Uconn’s history. The 2 games before the Quarterfinal Uconn had won both to give them pretty good momentum but no one saw them as a real threat since they were 9th in the Big East and they would have to go through Pittsburgh who was leading the Big East with a 15-3 record but they would meet in the Quarterfinal.

It was a pretty close game throughout the whole game and Pittsburgh had Uconn in unfamiliar territory with it being such a close game after the 2 blowout wins they had a couple of games before. Uconn had extra firepower because no one said that they had a chance let alone make some noise in the dance. With time winding down in a tie game, Walker put his defender on the ground with a crossover stepback and shot the shot that started the beginning of their 2011 national title run. The Huskies went on to beat Syracuse and Louisville in the Semifinals and the final in the Big East Tournament.

The Huskies advanced to win 11 straight postseason games and claim the title over Butler which would be engraved into Uconn culture forever. Their victory shows that people only need to believe in the team for the latter to succeed.

#3. Wisconsin shatters Kentucky’s near-perfect season. “38 and Done”

In 2015 the #1 seed Kentucky Wildcats were the clear favorites to win it all with their future NBA stars like Devin Booker and Karl Anthony Towns. The Wildcats went 38-0 on the season and had plans to have the first undefeated season since 1976 (Indiana Hoosiers) but on April 4th, 2015, the #3 seed Wisconsin Badgers had a much different plan.

Wisconsin was led by Frank Kaminsky was red hot all season and he rolled it over into the dance. Kaminsky finished the game with 20 points and made a play that put 1 of the 3 nails in Kentucky’s coffin. The first nail was Sam Dekker who stepped up on both ends of the floor, Dekker made a late 3 to put Wisconsin out in front by 3 with 1:41 to go. Right after Dekker hit that shot he also took a charge on defense to give Wisconsin the ball back with 1:25 left and got to the free-throw line to put them up by 5 with a minute left. Kentucky’s Aaron Harrison made a layup while being fouled so he went to the line to put the game in arms reach but that’s where the second nail, Frank Kaminsky came in. Kaminsky got fouled and went to the free-throw line to make it a 3-point game once again.

The last nail that finally put Kentucky to sleep was 2 free throws by Bronson Koenig to put them up by 4 with 12 seconds left and gave them their first loss and last loss of their season which gave the 2015 Kentucky team the name “38 and Done”.

#2. Saint Peters Cinderella Elite 8 run

The most recent story on this list comes from the 2022 March Madness tournament where the #15 seed Saint Peters Peacocks shocked the entire sports world by being the first 15th seed in tournament history to make an Elite 8 appearance.

St Peters doesn’t have the recruiting edge over major D1 schools. Just to show how small the school and the fan base was Saint Peter’s average home attendance in 2022 was 546 compared to Duke who has a 500+ game consecutive game sell-out rate going back to 1990. Saint Peter didn’t let anything get in between them and took down powerhouse schools like #2 Kentucky #3 Purdue and #7 Murry State in the dance.

With them making the Elite 8 they got plenty of new fans from around the sports world, Famous athletes like Eli Manning, Geroge Kittle, and Ja Morant shared their best wishes on Twitter for their next game which was against #8 seed North Carolina where their season would sadly come to an end. With Saint Peter’s nationwide attention most of the players got scholarships to bigger schools for the next year.

The loss was definitely sad for the fans and players but they put little Saint Peters on the map forever and will always be in the history books as one of the best Cinderella stories in March Madness History.

#1. Kris Jenkins’ shot for the championship

#1 should be no surprise as it is Villanova’s Kris Jenkins’ game-winner that won them the 2016 National Championship over North Carolina University. Before the greatest moment in college basketball history, North Carolina’s Marcus Paige threw up an off-balance three-pointer with 7 seconds left in the game and made it to tie it up at 74. Villanova called a timeout to run one last play until a possible overtime, but 4.7 seconds was all Jenkins needed to solidify himself as a Villanova legend forever.

Ryan Arcidiacono got the inbound and ran up the court he pitched it back to Jenkins, who was a couple of steps behind the arc on the right wing and shot it with 0.9 seconds left in the game. Everyone who was in the stadium and watching on TV all had their eyes on the ball in mid-air waiting for it to come down, and it went in. All the Villanova players rushed to the court to hug Jenkins while the gold and white confetti was raining down on them from the catwalk of NRG Stadium. Coaches hugging, Villanova fans in the stadium were hugging strangers, yelling at the top of their lungs, high-fiving everyone in arm’s reach, and students back home in Villanova were getting ready for what would be a week of partying.