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.