Gonzaga, Tennessee or Purdue: Who is men’s college basketball’s most tortured fan base?

Every sport has its tortured fan bases: the Buffalo Bills, the Los Angeles Clippers, the Seattle Mariners. College basketball, with so many more teams than any professional league and a postseason that maximizes heartbreaking drama, claims a bevy of haunted fan bases, as well.

Those groups have had an especially rough go of it lately. Two eternally hopeful groups that have never won it all, Purdue and Houston, each fell to multi-time champions in the past two NCAA Tournament championship games. Gonzaga lost two title games in the last decade. Illinois nearly returned to the Final Four promised land in 2024 but was unceremoniously bounced out in the Elite Eight by eventual champ UConn via 30-0 scoring run. Tennessee has, sadly, continued to be Tennessee in March. With such pain bubbling to the surface in recent postseasons, it felt like a perfect time to check in on college hoops’ most tortured fan bases.

An important internal debate I had here: What is the worst kind of fan torture? Is it the crushing feeling of getting close over and over, only to come up short? Or is it the barren, broken spirit of not even experiencing hope?

I am an equal opportunity evaluator of angst, though, so I tried my hand at both. Below is an attempt to rank the most tortured fan bases in all of college basketball, divided into two groupings: “Torture is Trauma” and a more abbreviated “Torture is Hopelessness.”

Torture is Trauma

1. Tennessee

It’s an honor no program wants, but perhaps the Vols will wear this one with a melancholic sense of pride. Tennessee lands at the top as a product of producing consistently excellent teams that have never quite reached the mountaintop. The Vols rank fourth all-time in NCAA Tournament appearances without a Final Four (26), and that fact has never felt more raw than the last two seasons.

Arguably Tennessee’s best team ever, the Dalton Knecht-led 2023-24 squad, had its run ended by another tortured group, Purdue, allowing Boilermakers coach Matt Painter and center Zach Edey to exorcise some postseason demons of their own. And this past season, a monumentally poor shooting performance doomed the Vols against an elite Houston team. Add in another gut-wrenching loss (99-94 in OT) to the Boilers in 2019, and the Vols have certainly seen enough of Purdue Pete in the postseason.

Rick Barnes has brought a ton of success to Knoxville, but he is 71. Can he break the program through to the Final Four before he hangs it up, or will the responsibility for ending the torture fall to a new name in the next 3-5 years?

2. Gonzaga

Perhaps two title game appearances and a seemingly infinite reservation in the Sweet 16 are enough to placate most fan bases. But Gonzaga has been excellent — and usually elite — for over two decades, yet has been unable to reach the sport’s apex. In fact, the Zags have finished in the KenPom top two in five of the past nine years. With that kind of peak performance, it is brutal to have never gotten over the finish line and only have two Final Four appearances.

But Gonzaga still has to deal with the lazily lobbed barbs about not being able to get over the hump due to playing in a weaker conference. An impending move to the new-look Pac-12 likely will not silence that particular sect of haters, either. More importantly, questions about head coach Mark Few’s longevity have begun to spread. Granted, the succession plan is stable with Brian Michaelson waiting in the wings, but it’s no guarantee the Bulldogs can continue at the stratospheric levels of contention to which they have become accustomed under Few.

3. Purdue

Purdue might have been atop this list before the Zach Edey-fueled 2024 run to the national title game. The Boilermakers had gone 44 years without a Final Four, and a drought spanning the entire successful Gene Keady and Matt Painter tenures was cause for immense pain. Great team after great team simply fell short, and the 2024 title game run clearly meant a great deal to the fan base.

However, they ran into a bulldozer of a UConn squad in the final. The Boilermakers have the 10th-most wins in college basketball history, but their all-time resume still has a championship-sized hole in it.

4. Illinois

If not for the program’s recent resurgence under coach Brad Underwood, Illinois would be frighteningly close to falling into the second category of these rankings. From 2008 to 2019, the Illini made just three NCAA Tournament appearances, and they did not advance past the first weekend in any of them. Five straight appearances with Underwood, including an Elite Eight in 2024, have ensured that Illinois’ torture remains painful but not hopeless. Injuries and brutal draws have all contributed to the Illini’s struggles.

The Illini only got three years of the prime of Bill Self’s coaching career, and though Bruce Weber made a title game with a veteran core of Self’s players, that crushing loss to North Carolina still hurts Illini fans to this day. Not having made it back to the Final Four since is certainly part of that angst. With Underwood at the helm, the Illini will remain a consistent postseason squad – which could simply mean more torture.

5. BYU6. Xavier7. Missouri

I’m pooling this trio together because the source of angst is the same: BYU (32), Xavier (30) and Missouri (29) have made the most tournament appearances without a Final Four.

Each program has its own history of heartache. BYU’s best team with Jimmer Fredette was undone by a violation of the school’s honor code that sidelined starting center Brandon Davies, and the Cougars lost in the Sweet 16 to Florida. Three different Xavier coaches have made the Elite Eight, with the 2004 Musketeers falling by just three points to Duke, the most crushing loss of the bunch. Missouri’s magical 2009 team could not quite topple UConn in the Elite Eight. (Tortured fan bases losing to Florida, Duke and UConn — a “rich get richer” theme if I’ve ever seen one!

With freshman AJ Dybantsa and an NIL war chest, BYU has the best chance to end that drought this year. The Cougars are expected to feature in many preseason top 10s. Missouri will be favored to make the NCAA Tournament, but a deep run would be a shocker, while Xavier fans are hoping that a reset with Richard Pitino in charge will eventually end their March suffering.

8. Houston

Houston has many similarities to Purdue. The Cougars have also never won a national championship, having fallen in the national title game three times in the last 45 years. And like Purdue, Houston could finally conquer the CBB world this season and end the torture. The Cougars should be a nearly unanimous top-five team in the preseason, giving Kelvin Sampson another chance to break through.

The difference is that Houston has not had quite as many crushing, torturous losses. Sampson revitalized the program, digging it out of the gutter after it was largely irrelevant for 25 years from 1993 to 2018 (one NCAA Tournament appearance in that span). Additional pressure comes from the fact that Sampson may retire soon, and it’s unknown how his son, Kellen, will fare as the presumed successor.

9. Cincinnati

Yes, Cincinnati has won a national title. But that was in 1962, so you’d have to be roughly 70 years old to remember it; that does not really count for my purposes here.

From 1970 on, Cincinnati has gone dancing 26 times but has struggled badly in the postseason. The Bob Huggins era did include a Final Four in 1992, but the 2000 team — arguably the best in the country — lost star forward Kenyon Martin to a broken leg right before the NCAA Tournament. The Huggins era ended unceremoniously, and the Bearcats have made just one Sweet 16 since 2001. Now, Cincinnati is in a postseason drought and coach Wes Miller is under pressure.

For what it’s worth: I also considered Indiana and Georgetown, two storied programs with titles in the 1980s that have descended into a deep funk. But those championships were just barely recent enough to carry some weight in my mind.

10. Creighton

Creighton is a sneaky inclusion here. The fan base is huge and fiercely loyal, and the Bluejays have been good for the better part of 30 years under Dana Altman and Greg McDermott. They’ve had multiple All-Americans and made the NCAA Tournament 18 times over that time frame.

However, the Bluejays have never made the Final Four despite some terrific squads, ranking just behind BYU, Xavier, Missouri and Tennessee for the most tourney bids without a Final Four appearance. The 2023 Elite Eight heartbreak — losing to San Diego State on a tough foul call in the final seconds — produced a new level of angst. The Bluejays appear to have a strong succession plan in place, with Alan Huss waiting to take over for McDermott, but their best coach ever is running out of chances to end the drought.

Honorable Mention: Georgetown, Indiana, Marquette

Torture is Hopelessness

On the other end of the spectrum are teams that would find it an important accomplishment to simply make the tournament. We’ll call this the “final four” of teams that would be relieved just to make the First Four.

1. Washington

Washington made a Final Four way back in 1953, but that’s not really relevant here. What does matter is that from 1998 to 2012, Washington won two regular-season titles, three conference tournaments and made eight NCAA Tournaments. The Huskies’ 2012 Pac-12 regular season championship famously did not result in an NCAA Tournament bid, however, and it was all downhill from there.

In the ensuing 13 seasons, Washington has qualified for just one NCAA Tournament. Lorenzo Romar’s magic dust faded fast, and the Mike Hopkins era was replete with disappointment. “Bonus” torture points go to Husky fans who were also Sonics fans and lost their NBA team in 2008. Washington fans desperately hope that Danny Sprinkle can revive the winning ways with a revamped roster in 2025-26.

Danny Sprinkle will look to revitalize the Huskies in his second year at the helm. (Steven Bisig / Imagn Images)

2. Providence

The Friars have a rabid fan base — pop by any game at the Amica Mutual Pavilion, or just tweet something vaguely critical of the program, and you will experience it firsthand. This is a team that had Rick Pitino in charge … for only two years before he left for the New York Knicks. It had Rick Barnes in charge … for only six years before he left for Clemson. The Friars yearn for a native son to carry the banner for the program for a long, long time.

It seemed Ed Cooley would be that name. Born and raised in Providence, Cooley brought life back to the program, ending a nine-year NCAA Tournament drought in 2014. But he only made one Sweet 16 in his 12-year run, and he abandoned the Friar Faithful for a conference rival (Georgetown, if you had not heard). Providence has now missed two tournaments under Kim English, and a third straight whiff could bring another coaching search.

3. Oklahoma State

From 1991 through 2017, Oklahoma State was a fixture in the NCAA Tournament, making 19 appearances in 28 seasons. After Eddie Sutton retired in 2006, though, the actual postseason success vanished. OSU has been to just two NCAA Tournaments in the past decade and has not made a Sweet 16 appearance in 20 years. The program’s best coach in that span, Brad Underwood, leapfrogged to Illinois after just one season. Perhaps Steve Lutz can rediscover the magic in Stillwater and oversee a rowdy, packed Gallagher-Iba Arena once again.

4. Minnesota

Like OSU, the Golden Gophers have a legendary coach (Clem Haskins) in their past but have fallen on extremely hard times since an academic scandal led to his dismissal in 1999. After the turn of the century, Minnesota has made just six NCAA Tournaments and won only two games in those appearances. Minnesota now has high hopes of a resurgence thanks to the arrival of new coach and alum Niko Medved.

Honorable Mention: Wake Forest, DePaul, Georgia Tech

(Top photo: Jacob Kupferman / Getty Images)