Best NCAA Cinderella Teams to Win March Madness 2024
Everyone loves a good sporting underdog story, right?
The best Cinderella teams in college basketball will go to the ball – if said ball is a deep run into March Madness and, perhaps, a shot at the NCAA National Championship in the final.
March Madness often throws up these intriguing tales of unheralded, low-ranked teams overcoming the odds to battle their way deep into their bracket, and BetVictor Canada thought it was high time we celebrated these fantastic Cinderella stories.
What is a Cinderella Team?
If your Disney knowledge needs a refresh, Cinderella was the humble heroine who wanted to go to the ball – her Fairy Godmother granting her wish despite the spite of her Wicked Stepsisters.
At midnight, Cinderella turns back from a princess into her normal self, but for one evening she gets the chance to be the belle of the ball.
So what does this all have to do with college basketball? Well, Disney’s starlet lends her name to any NCAA team that overcomes the odds to make a deep run into the March Madness tournament. It could be injuries, adversity or simply being a low seed.
There’s no single definition of what is a Cinderella team, but what is common is that these underappreciated colleges have all enjoyed their ‘glass slipper’ moment in some way.
Best Cinderella Teams and Odds 2024
The NCAA betting odds reveal the best college basketball teams – these are the ones that are predicted to win, or at least be contenders for, reaching the Final Four and going on to win March Madness.
But what the odds don’t always reveal is the possibility of March Madness Cinderella teams flourishing – those teams that are way down the outright betting market, but who embark on a winning run nonetheless.
Generally speaking, a Cinderella team defies a low seeding and overcomes a string of higher-ranked opponents. And there’s a series of colleges with double-digit seeding that have that potential Cinderella vibe about them.
The Louisiana Tech Bulldogs are set to end a 30-year wait to appear at March Madness at all, so any success they have in the tournament will be a bonus.
But there’s a sense that they have what it takes to string a few wins together in the bracket draw, with their defensive stats in particular impressing.
The UC Irvine Anteaters are another defense-led team that could prove to be a tough nut to crack on the big stage – they, like Louisiana, are available at betting odds of longer than 50/1.
And how about 80/1 chance Gonzaga Bulldogs? This is a team that has beaten Kentucky, a big seed, already this season, and their offensive efficiency is such that their best starters average 31.1 points and 14.4 rebounds per game together.
Can you remember March Madness in 2023, when the San Diego Aztecs delivered an all-time Cinderella story to reach the National Championship game?
The Californian college is at it again, although this time they are likely to head into the tourny as a much-lower seed – despite retaining some key components from that stellar effort in ’23. At 80/1, some will be backing San Diego to have a second night at the ball.
Lowest Seed to Win March Madness (And Other Cinderella Runs)
The lowest seed to win March Madness were the Villanova Wildcats in 1985, who overcame a number eight seeding to take down the top-ranked Georgetown in the final.
That 1985 season was the first to feature an expanded 64-team format, and since then 32 of the 37 editions have been won by a college seeded one, two, or three.
So that helps to contextualize the extraordinary achievement of Villanova, the lowest-ranked team to win March Madness.
Others have knocked on the door. On five separate occasions, colleges seeded eleven have made it to the Final Four – just one game away from the National Championship final and a shot at immortality.
Of them, the remarkable effort of the LSU class of ’86 takes some topping. They defeated the three top-seeded colleges on their way to the Final Four – talk about doing things the hard way! – before losing to Louisville in the semi-final game.
George Mason also upset the odds in 2006… in more ways than one. They didn’t even qualify for March Madness automatically, needing an ‘at large’ selection to book their place in the tournament.
And once there, they went large alright, downing the mega-powers of Michigan State, North Carolina, and Connecticut’s UConn – the latter in edge-of-the-seat fashion in overtime. The Patriots would become the first CAA team to reach the Final Four.
And a word too for Saint Peter’s, a lowly 15th seed that made it all the way to the Elite Eight in 2022.
The Peacocks were completely disregarded prior to March Madness, but their victory in the early rounds over Kentucky went down as one of the greatest underdog stories in the history of NCAA basketball.
Find Out the Latest College Basketball Betting Odds
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