Worst Team to Win a Championship

2010 Auburn also benefited from a Steve Spurrier brain cramp. After watching Conner Shaw come off the bench and light it up, the HBC put Steven Garcia in for the most important drive, which was promptly crushed by an interception.

 

I'm thinking the 1997 Florida Marlins and 1991-92 Pittsburgh Penguins would have to be right up there.

 

You can be lucky AND good, however. With the exception of 1995 Nebraska, it's a challenge to find ANY team that did not get at least one stroke of luck en route to a championship. Could have been a blown call. Or a stupid penalty by the opposition. Or a lucky play. Or all kinds of dominoes falling into place. Florida in 1996 lost its only game in the LAST regular-season game. That should be a title killer. But the Gators then saw a half-dozen teams fall afterward that enabled their Sugar Bowl rematch vs. FSU to win it a national title.

Nebraska in 1997 was a very good team . . . that happened to beat Missouri on the flukiest touchdown pass (Flea Kicker) since the Immaculate Reception. If Tom Osborne kicks a PAT (1984) and Bobby Bowden had a decent kicker other than Janikowski, Miami's 5 titles might look like 1 or 2.

 

If you just look at regular season record that Penguins team looks underwhelming, and their defensive corps wasn't the greatest, but that team was absolutely loaded up front - Lemieux, Jagr, Francis, Mullen, Tocchet coming in for Recchi in a midseason trade, and Kevin Stevens at the absolute peak of his game, prior to the severe facial injury and the crack arrest. Mario missed a quarter of the regular season with injury, which in part explains the middling record. And Barrasso was still pretty good in goal.

I would definitely put them ahead of the next season's Canadiens team (although I don't have a good answer for you as to why the '93 Penguins didn't beat the Islanders in the playoffs).

 

Houston Astros as Naitonal League champs a few years back.

 

If we're going there, the Stan Humphries Chargers are the first team to come to mind, though the 2 Padre teams to lose WS in the last 30 years are pretty good choices too.

 

Except, historically this 2002 Maryland team wouldn't be one of the 50 best teams and there were a number of teams - like 1992 UNLV, the Derrick Coleman Syracuse team, the Illinois team with Derron Williams and company - that didn't win titles that would beat this Maryland team.

That being said - this team gets a slight edge over that horsehit Duke team of two or three years ago that won.

And they were a "team" with two good college players - who survived a horseshit field.

 

Fresno State baseball in the CWS. The were a No. 4 in their regional and got hot, really hot. Great story though.

 

2010 Auburn Tigers

 

You can play the hypothetical match-ups all you want, but that Maryland team was 32-4 overall and 15-1 in the ACC, had the ACC player of the year (Juan Dixon), another All-ACC player (Lonny Baxter), a guy who was a NBA Lottery Pick that year (Chris Wilcox) and a point guard still in the NBA 10 years later (Steve Blake). Not to mention once Dixon, Baxter, Wilcox and another senior starter were gone, the remnants of that team made the Sweet 16 a year later.

That was a top 50 team, no doubt.

 

Agreed. And also might point out that "horseshit" Duke team Zag referenced was 35-5, a No. 1 seed, and had dominated both the ACC regular season and conf tourney.

Neither 02 Maryland, 10 Duke, nor any other team that earned a No. 1 seed going into the tournament, belongs in this discussion.

 

I can't believe more people haven't picked the 2010-11 Connecticut team, which I think is one of the worst champs in recent memory. Perhaps, though, that squad just didn't seem worthy because it underachieved toward the end of a 21-9 regular season by losing seven of 11.

However, that team also barely squeaked by in the Elite Eight against Arizona and the national semifinal versus Kentucky. It also faced one team that earned a top three seed, San Diego State.