Every NCAA Tournament Champion Since 1939, and Who Has Won March Madness the Most

Most NCAA tournament championships by school

Ten of UCLA's titles came under John Wooden from 1964 to 1975, seven of them in a row. UConn and North Carolina have six each, Duke and Indiana five, Kansas four, and Florida, Louisville and Villanova three, although the NCAA vacated Louisville's 2013 title. Sixteen schools have won more than once and 21 exactly once.

In title games, UConn has won six of seven, losing only in 2026, and Indiana five of six, while North Carolina is 6-6, Duke 5-6 and Kansas 4-6. The Houston Cougars have played in the most finals without winning one, losing in 1983, 1984 and 2025.

NCAA tournament champions list: every March Madness winner since 1939

The list follows the NCAA's championship history, and our script checked every result against the NCAA's 2006 Final Four Records Book through 2005 and Wikipedia's brackets since 1985. Seven champions went unbeaten, the last Indiana at 32-0 in 1976, and UNLV's 103-73 win over Duke in 1990 is the widest margin in a final.

Back-to-back NCAA champions

Defending champions have retained the title 14 times in 86 attempts, half of them by UCLA, in 1965 and every year from 1968 to 1973. In the 52 tournaments since that run, it has happened three times, and no one has won three in a row. Eight schools have won back-to-back titles:

• Oklahoma A&M: 1945 and 1946
• Kentucky: 1948 and 1949
• San Francisco: 1955 and 1956
• Cincinnati: 1961 and 1962
• UCLA: 1964 and 1965, then seven in a row from 1967 to 1973
• Duke: 1991 and 1992
• Florida: 2006 and 2007
• UConn: 2023 and 2024

UConn's bid for a third straight title ended in the second round in 2025, with a 77-75 loss to Florida, the eventual champion.

NCAA basketball champions by conference

Counting each conference under all its names, as the NCAA's records book does, the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) and the Pac-12 line, from the Pacific Coast Conference to the Pac-10, have won 15 titles each. The Southeastern Conference (SEC) has 12, the Big Ten and the Big East 11 each, and independents six, the last by Marquette in 1977.

Wooden won 10 of the Pac-12 line's titles, and its last came from Arizona in 1997. Since UNLV won for the Big West in 1990, every champion but one has come from the six major conferences of the era, the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC and Pac-12; the exception is UConn in 2014, then in the American Athletic Conference. Michigan's 2026 title was the Big Ten's first since Michigan State in 2000, as our analysis of March Madness bids by conference notes.

Champions by decade and first-time NCAA champions

First-time champions have become rare. They won 20 of the 31 tournaments from 1939 to 1969, 12 of 30 from 1970 to 1999 and five of 26 since 2000: Maryland, Syracuse, Florida, Virginia and Baylor. The five titles since Baylor's in 2021 all went to schools that had won before.

The 1960s had the fewest different champions, five in 10 tournaments, as UCLA won five of them; every full decade since has had six to eight.

March Madness champions by seed since 1979

Since 1979, when every team was seeded for the first time, No. 1 seeds have won 29 of the 47 titles, No. 2 seeds seven, No. 3 seeds five and No. 4 seeds two. Only four champions were seeded lower: NC State as a 6 seed in 1983, Villanova as an 8 in 1985, Kansas as a 6 in 1988 and UConn as a 7 in 2014. Since the field reached 64 teams in 1985, No. 1 seeds have won 27 of 41, and our March Madness seed records follow every seed line round by round.

Women's NCAA tournament champions

The NCAA women's tournament began in 1982, and 17 schools have won the 44 played since. UConn has 12, including four in a row from 2013 to 2016, and Tennessee eight, while Baylor, South Carolina and Stanford have three each. UCLA became the 17th different champion in 2026, beating South Carolina 79-51 in Phoenix. No. 1 seeds have won 24 of the 32 tournaments since 1994, as our women's March Madness seed records show.

The 2026 champion and the 2026-27 season

Michigan, a No. 1 seed, beat the Arizona Wildcats 91-73 in the national semifinals and finished 37-3. UConn, which had won its first six title games, lost one for the first time.

The 2026-27 season started on Nov. 1 with Notre Dame beating Villanova 74-72 in Rome. Florida, the 2025 champion, is No. 1 in the AP preseason poll with 47 of the 59 first-place votes, and Michigan is 16th; no preseason No. 1 has won the title since North Carolina in 2009, as our study of the preseason poll shows.

The tournament grows to 76 teams, Selection Sunday is March 14 and the Final Four is April 3 and 5 at Ford Field in Detroit. Until then, the AP Top 25 and every game involving a ranked team are on our college basketball pages.

NCAA tournament champions: frequently asked questions

Who has won the most NCAA tournament championships? UCLA, with 11, 10 of them under John Wooden from 1964 to 1975. Kentucky has eight, and UConn and North Carolina six each.

Who won the 2026 NCAA tournament? Michigan, which beat UConn 69-63 in the final in Indianapolis on April 6, 2026.

How many schools have won the NCAA tournament? Thirty-seven, in 87 tournaments since 1939. The most recent first-time champion is Baylor, in 2021.

Who was the last back-to-back NCAA champion? UConn, in 2023 and 2024. No school has won three in a row since UCLA's seven straight titles from 1967 to 1973.

Who has won the most women's NCAA tournament titles? UConn, with 12, the latest in 2025. Tennessee has eight.

How this was built: all 87 men's finals from 1939 to 2026 (none was played in 2020) and all 44 women's finals since 1982, from NCAA.com's championship histories, men's and women's. Our script matched every men's result through 2005 with the NCAA's 2006 Final Four Records Book and every one since 1985 with Wikipedia's brackets (2026 here). Conferences and seeds come from the book through 2005 and Wikipedia since; our conference totals through 2005 equal the book's own table, and each conference counts under all its names, as in the book. Results count as played, including Louisville's 2013 title and title-game appearances the NCAA later vacated. Checked October 21, 2026.