Andy Reid, say hello to Dan Hurley.
Here we are in the winter of three-peat bids, Reid and the Kansas City Chiefs one Super Bowl away, Hurley and Connecticut still with heavy lifting to do in March and early April. Their quests both highlight the difficulty of the feat. No NFL coach has ever pulled it off in the Super Bowl era. Nor has any men’s college basketball coach not named John Wooden.
It has been that way across major sports for more than a century. It’s never happened since the poll age dawned in college football in the 1930s. Only the New York Yankees and Oakland were in the World Series. Only the Boston Celtics, Chicago Bulls, and the Lakers of both Minneapolis and Los Angeles in the NBA Finals. Only Montreal, Toronto, and the New York Islanders are in the NHL Stanley Cup. Only the monoliths of Connecticut and Tennessee in women’s basketball. Nobody ever won three Masters in a row, no driver has ever three-peated at the Indianapolis 500, and no country in soccer’s World Cup, men or women.
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The chances for Hurley and the Huskies still seem a little vague. Connecticut is not the juggernaut of last season — the 16-6 Huskies are currently fourth in the Big East — but they’re still dangerous and about to get healthier with the return of freshman flash Liam McNeeley.
So as UConn’s crunch time nears, a look at what happened to other two-time champions who had the chance:
Oklahoma State 1947
Things were different then. The defending champion was called Oklahoma A&M, nicknamed the Aggies, and a member of the Missouri Valley Conference. Anyway, all five starters were gone. Henry Iba was able to quickly rebuild and go 24-8 but finished in a tie for second in the MVC and didn’t get into the eight-team tournament. Two years later, the Aggies were back in the championship game.
Kentucky 1950
This gets a little juicy. The two-time defending champion Wildcats went 25-4 during the season, were ranked No. 3 and won the SEC. But no invitation ever came for the NCAA Tournament. Only one team from their district could be in the eight-team field, and by a 2-1 vote, the selection committee went for 25-5 North Carolina State. Some in ancient Big Blue Nation hollered foul, noting that one of the North Carolina State votes came from Gus Tebell, who once coached the Wolfpack and had even attended their league tournament. “What does a team have to do to receive a bid?” Kentucky coach Adolph Rupp was quoted as saying at the time.
Oh, well. The Wildcats went to the NIT and were promptly drubbed 89-50 by CCNY, the champion of both the NIT and NCAA that year. It was the worst loss in Rupp’s career.
P.S. The NCAA — perhaps a tad stung by the commotion over how a two-time defending champion could go 25-4, win its conference, and not get invited to the tournament — expanded the bracket from eight to 16 teams the next year. Kentucky won the national championship.
San Francisco 1957
Bill Russell and K.C. Jones was gone, but the Dons had enough back to keep rolling. They started 5-0 to run their then-record winning streak to 60 games. A 62-33 pounding at Illinois ended the streak and triggered a slump of losing five of seven games, but San Francisco righted itself and won 13 of its next 14. The Dons charged back to the Final Four but they certainly could have used Russell when they went against Kansas and a center named Wilt Chamberlain. With Chamberlain scoring 32 points, the Jayhawks ended San Francisco’s run 80-56. A reserve for the Dons, averaging 1.8 points a game, was Charlie Russell, Bill’s older brother.
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Cincinnati 1963
No team had yet to win three NCAA titles in a row but here seemed the powerhouse to do it. The Bearcats returned four starters from the two-time champions and swept into the national title game again with a 26-1 record. The defeat was by one point at Wichita State. They sensed history at hand, and as coach Ed Jucker said before the game, “We want it very badly.”
They seemed so close to getting it in the second half against Loyola Chicago, leading 45-30, 14 minutes away from a three-peat. But Loyola’s pressure defense began to force turnovers and the game ended up in overtime, where Vic Rouse’s putback at the buzzer beat Cincinnati 60-58. It was a landmark moment for the Ramblers, whose five starters went all 45 minutes. For the Bearcats, who were in their fifth consecutive Final Four, it was the end of an era. They would not be back for 29 years.
With Cincinnati’s demise, it was widely questioned if any program would ever win three consecutive titles, given its long odds and short margin for error. But then, something was brewing out west at UCLA.
UCLA 1966
John Wooden’s program was in a full gallop, going 58-2 the previous two seasons with back-to-back championships. Most of the stars were gone, but Wooden’s program was so sound that the Bruins were voted No. 1 in the preseason for 1965-66. However, the personnel losses turned out to be too heavy and UCLA slipped to 18-8 and didn’t make the tournament. But the loss everyone should have paid attention to was November 27, 1965, when UCLA's varsity played a preseason contest against the freshman team. The freshmen included a tall New Yorker named Lew Alcindor, who the world would later know as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. That night he had 31 points and 21 rebounds, and the freshmen won by 15 points. It was like an alarm bell going off for the rest of college basketball.
UCLA 1969
The moment for a threepeat had come and everyone knew it. Anchored by Alcindor, the Bruins had gone 88-2 in three seasons, winning national championships in 1967 and ’68 and storming back to the title game in 1969. Purdue and Rick Mount were the only obstacles left. Six years before, Cincinnati had stumbled over this last hurdle, would UCLA? Not a chance. Alcindor ended his college career with 37 points and 20 rebounds and the Bruins cruised to history 92-72.
That was hardly the Bruins’ last moment of glory. There would be a four-peat, a five-peat, a six-peat, and a seven-peat. UCLA and Wooden stood alone. Very, very alone.
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Duke 1993
If Wooden had the secret, did anyone else? Maybe Mike Krzyzewski? Christian Laettner was gone from the 1991 and ’92 champions but six players were back who had scored in the previous national championship game, notably Bobby Hurley and Grant Hill. The Blue Devils were ranked No. 1 early in the season and showed their power by beating Michigan’s Fab Five by 10 points. But there were some bumps along the way and they eventually went into their NCAA Tournament second-round game 23-7 and a No. 3 seed, facing No. 6 California.
The day went wrong in a hurry, and Cal pulled away to a stunning 55-37 lead. The Blue Devils charged back as champions usually do and edged ahead 77-76 with just over two minutes to play. But a spectacular falling-down layup by Jason Kidd led to a three-point play and put the Bears ahead to stay. Duke’s three-peat bid expired 82-77, Hurley ending his legendary career with 32 points and nine assists.
As the last seconds ticked away, Krzyzewski stood on the sidelines applauding. He explained later, “I was clapping for my team. I wanted to say thanks.”
Two weeks after that, North Carolina defeated Michigan in the national championship game. Duke had beaten them both during the regular season.
Florida 2008
After the first title in 2006, all five Gator starters had returned to do it again. But none were back to go for third. Still, the new guys showed some juice and took an 18-3 record into February, but that’s when Florida hit a wall. The Gators went 3-7 in their last 10 season games, then were one and done in the SEC Tournament. There would be no invitation on Selection Sunday.
Florida did win its way to the NIT semifinals but was ousted by Massachusetts 78-66 and finished 24-12. “I'm not going to sit up here and talk about youthfulness or what we don't have or what we lost or those types of things,” coach Billy Donovan said after the defeat, “Sometimes you've got to go through some things to understand what it takes to win. It's in front of our guys, what it takes to win, and for whatever reason, I haven't brought it out in them.”
One year earlier, he had taken questions about whether his Florida team might be one of the finest in history. Now there was defeat to explain. The gods of sports often abruptly change their minds like that about karma, and staying on their good side for three years is almost always too much to ask. That’s the reality the Kansas City Chiefs will face on Super Bowl Sunday. And not far down the road in March, the Connecticut Huskies.
