National Review: State-By-State Winners and Sinners in NCAA DI Tourney

No state has won as much as 64% of its NCAA Tournament games and none has as many as five different schools with winning playoff records. The Michigan Wolverines reaching the 2018 NCAA final instead of the Kansas Jayhawks enabled Michigan (.6284) to nudge ahead of Kansas (.6279) as the state with highest all-time winning percentage before the Michigan State Spartans padded the state's advantage with a 2019 Final Four appearance. Kansas, one of 20 states represented by four or fewer members in the U.S. House of Representatives, is represented much more in the NCAA playoffs by ranking seventh with 164 victories from only three universities. With Kentucky and Louisville on the sideline, California passed the Commonwealth in total NCAA playoff triumphs. Additional stately views of national winners and sinners you might want to review include:

• Despite going winless in 2021, schools from the state of North Carolina have collected more NCAA Tournament triumphs (324) than a total of 22 states including those with power-conference members such as Georgia, Missouri, New Jersey and West Virginia.
• All four ACC members in Carolina have more than 25 playoff triumphs. Each of them (Duke, North Carolina, North Carolina State and Wake Forest) has more all-time wins than entire states such as Colorado, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Mexico, Rhode Island and South Carolina.
• California is the only state with as many as 18 schools winning at least one NCAA Tournament game. Alas, less than 1/4 of them (four) have winning marks.
• Other than Syracuse, Canisius is the only current New York Division I school to compile a winning NCAA playoff record (6-4). CCNY, the NCAA's DI champion in 1950, assembled a 4-2 mark ledger before de-emphasizing its program.
• Despite Villanova's two NCAA titles in the last five tourneys, Pennsylvania is the only state with at least 140 tourney victories to compile an overall losing mark.
• Syracuse (plus 29 in NY; 70-41) and Villanova (plus 29 in PA; 67-38) are the most games above .500 in states with overall losing playoff marks. On the flip side, Miami OH (minus 13; 6-19) and Murray State KY (minus 13; 4-17) are tied for most games below .500 in states with overall winning worksheets.
• Abilene Christian enabled Texas to nudge ahead of California for most different schools participating in the tourney with 24 although 2021 Final Four participants Baylor and Houston are the only institutions from the Lone Star State posting a winning record. Texas has a total of 15 Final Four teams but is more games under .500 than any state (minus 38 including 10 different universities never winning a playoff contest).
• LSU is the only one of Louisiana's 12 schools appearing in the playoffs notching a winning record. South Carolina has the most universities participate in the tourney (nine) without any of them posting a break-even or winning playoff record. Kansas has only three different colleges appear in the NCAA Tournament but boasts seven times as many victories as South Carolina and four times as many triumphs as Louisiana.
• All six Mid-American Conference members from Ohio have losing records, combining for a 19-52 mark (.268).
• Tennessee, the winningest state in NCAA playoff history despite never having a national champion, is the only state with as many as six schools at least five games below .500 in NCAA tourney competition.
• Virginia is the only one of 12 different schools from its state and Memphis is only one of 11 different Tennessee schools appearing in the tourney to post a winning record.
• Memphis (34-26) is joined by Spokane, Wash.-based Gonzaga (39-23) as the only mid-major schools leading a state with more than 60 playoff wins.
• The only states with fewer than 45 tourney triumphs to assemble overall winning records are Nevada (39-28 by 6-9 Nevada and 33-19 UNLV) plus New Hampshire (10-7 by Dartmouth).
• Utah is the only state saddled with as many as three schools posting tourney marks more than 10 games below .500 - Brigham Young (15-33), Utah State (6-24) and Weber State (6-17).

Plagiarist Joe Biden, despite big tech aspiring to hide details about his soap-opera family, hopes his prospects of success telling truth about attending HBCU Delaware State are a mite higher than the NCAA Tournament win total of the state he served as Senator because Delaware is 0-6. Abilene Christian and North Texas posted their initial NCAA tourney triumph this year. Following are NCAA Division I playoff cumulative records listed by most state victories through 2021:

NOTE: Two states - Alaska and Maine - never had a school participate in the NCAA Division I Tournament.