The 2025 men's Final Four was one of the best we've seen in quite some time. The team trailing at halftime in all three games won, and we got a pair of absolute classics in Houston's comeback win over Duke and Florida's comeback win over Houston.
Monday's Gators-Cougars title game was impossibly gripping and physical, just as a game between these two experienced teams was meant to be. They boasted two of the best defenses in the country and made life as difficult as possible for each other all the way to the end. Granted, it was a bit of a ref show in the middle, as college basketball games tend to be -- after just four fouls in the first half, we got 13 in the first seven minutes of the second -- but it was edge-of-your-seat stuff all the way.
It probably wasn't, however, one of the 50 best Final Four games of all time. The bar is ridiculously high in that regard, and Monday's title game didn't really give us an ending -- Houston didn't get a shot off in its final three possessions, and Florida managed to win despite scoring just three points in the final two minutes. It was a thriller all the same, and Houston-Duke assured 2025 of marquee placement on the list below.
Based on dramatic endings and upsets, here are my 50 best Final Four games of all time, stretching back to a time before the final weekend had a name at all. From Utah-Dartmouth '44 to Houston's comeback over Duke, we've been watching late-tournament thrillers for eight decades. Let's recognize the best of the best.
50. UCLA 81, Florida State 76 (1972 finals)
UCLA won 10 championships in 12 seasons, and the Bruins' first six title-game wins came by an average of 15 points. But after a 68-62 win over Villanova in 1971's finale, they got their stiffest test yet from an upstart FSU team. Ron King's 27 points and an early surge drove the Seminoles' upset bid, but UCLA still had Bill Walton (24 points, 20 rebounds) and Jamaal Wilkes (23 and 10). John Wooden's Bruins eventually prevailed as always.
49. Kansas 64, Ohio State 62 (2012 semifinals)
Down 13 late in the first half, Kansas rallied behind a combined 32 points and 18 rebounds from Thomas Robinson and Elijah Johnson, took the lead with under three minutes left, and got two big free throws from Tyshawn Taylor with 8.3 seconds remaining to hold off the Buckeyes.