Has a school won the NCAA men's and women's tournaments in the same year? NC State can in 2024
A college basketball team winning a national championship is a gargantuan achievement dreamed of by many but realized by precious few.
A team has to traverse a four-month regular season to qualify for the NCAA Tournament and, based on the history of the event, have a good enough seed that will give it a manageable path to a title. Once in the tournament, it has to win six consecutive games against the best competition in the country and in highly pressurized environments that can cause even the most talented and experienced players to crumble.
One team from a single school clearing all those hurdles is enough of a challenge. What about two teams? Well, that’s even rarer.
Still, NC State is tantalizingly close to doing so.
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With a pair of Elite Eight victories Sunday, the Wolfpack’s men’s and women’s basketball teams advanced to the Final Four, putting each team two wins away from their sport’s ultimate prize. That quest will resume later this week as the men’s team faces off against Purdue Saturday and the women’s team squares off against top overall seed South Carolina Friday, with a spot in the national championship game on the line for both.
Should Kevin Keatts' and Wes Moore’s squads both manage to pull off that feat, NC State will earn a distinction few in the history of NCAA basketball have.
Here’s a look at the potential history at stake for the Wolfpack entering Sunday’s games:
Has a team won men’s and women’s basketball championships in same year?
Indeed it has happened before, an achievement owned by a single school: UConn. The Huskies captured both the men’s and women’s NCAA titles in 2004 and 2014.
In 2004, UConn’s basketball teams combined to go 64-10, with the men defeating Georgia Tech in the championship game while the women got past rival Tennessee in their title matchup. Both teams were 2 seeds that year.
Ten years later, the Huskies replicated the accomplishment, with one of the two champions being a little more surprising than the other. While the women, with eight future WNBA players on their roster, won each NCAA Tournament game by at least 15 points on their way to a 40-0 season, the men, as a 7 seed that entered the event with a 26-8 record, became the second-lowest seed to ever win a title, behind only 8 seed Villanova’s championship in 1985.
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Has a school ever made the men’s and women’s basketball championships in the same year?
A school’s men’s and women’s basketball teams have made the NCAA championship game in the same year four times, going back to 1982, when the NCAA assumed governing power over women’s college basketball.
In addition to UConn in 2004 and 2014, Louisville did so in 2013 and Duke did so in 1999. The Cardinals’ men’s team defeated Michigan in the national championship game (a win later vacated by the NCAA following an investigation into the school’s escort scandal) while their women’s team lost to UConn. Both of the Blue Devils’ teams lost in the title game in 1999, falling to UConn on the men’s side and Purdue on the women’s side.
Has a school ever made the men’s and women’s Final Four in the same year?
There have been 15 instances of a school’s men’s and women’s teams reaching the NCAA Final Four in the same year, with NC State and UConn becoming the newest members of that exclusive club.
Here is a list of the schools that have done so:
NC State, 2024
UConn, 2024
South Carolina, 2017
Syracuse, 2016
UConn, 2014
Louisville, 2013
UConn, 2011
UConn, 2009
LSU, 2006
Michigan State, 2005
UConn, 2004
Texas, 2003
Oklahoma, 2002
Duke, 1999
Georgia, 1983
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Has a school won the NCAA men's and women's tournaments in the same year?
