The 16 Greatest Individual NCAA Title Game Performances Of All Time

After five (or so, depending on your era) grueling NCAA tournament games, a select handful of college ballers have proven to be able to locate yet another gear to put their team over the top in the national championship game — hell, some players are so damn impressive in a losing battle for the title that their performance is still the thing we best remember from the big game.

Here are the 16 best individual NCAA championship game performances of all time, in chronological order.

Clyde Lovellette, 1952

The Kansas Jayhawks center dropped 33 points and secured 17 rebounds to defeat St. John’s University for the title on March 26, 1952. He shot 12-of-25 from the field, 9-of-11 from the free-throw line, and committed four fouls.

We’d share more of his stats, but those are the only things scorekeepers were keeping track of back then.

B.H. Born, 1953

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A year after Lovellette’s departure, B.H. Born took his place in the middle for Kansas. Though his squad fell to Indiana in the championship game, Born collected what’s believed to be the only triple-double in a national championship game, with 26 points, 15 rebounds, and 13 blocks, which weren’t yet an official stat.

Bill Russell, 1956

While leading his University of San Francisco Dons to a national title for the second consecutive season, this time over the Iowa Hawkeyes, the future Hall of Famer scored 26 points and secured 27 rebounds, believed to be the most ever in a championship game.

Gail Goodrich, 1965

A year after hanging 27 points on Duke to win a national championship, Goodrich, standing at 6’1″, set a record for scoring from a guard in a title game, dropping a bonkers 42 points on 12-of-22 shooting to lead UCLA past Michigan in his final college game.