King of the Mountain 2014

I started a fun and nerdy project last month after watching and reading a few stories about the 40th anniversary of Notre Dame becoming "King of the Mountain" by knocking off UCLA 71-70 in South Bend in January 1974.  The loss halted UCLA's winning streak at 74 regular season games and 88 overall.  I wondered who then beat Notre Dame to become the new king... and then who beat that team... and who could possibly be King of the Mountain today?  And so it began.

I checked dozens of school media guides and few internet sports databases to catalog over 1100 games on the KOTM critical path.  The KOTM title changed hands 4 times in the 1973-1974 season (UCLA beat USC 82-52 on the final day) and over 300 times since UCLA's streak was broken.  250 schools have attempted and 113 different schools have held the title over that same period.

I relied heavily on media guides like UCLA's to capture scores and dates in the 70's.  I cross-referenced them with Ken Massey's masseyratings.com site, John Trono's Basketball Archive, as well as Sports-Reference.com for College Basketball.  Tables and hyperlink navigation was enabled in the 1979-1980 season on the Sports-Reference.com site, which made the last 30 years a lot easier to enter and validate the data.

The Salukis of Southern Illinois finished the 2012-2013 season atop the mountain, but lost their first game of the 2013-2014 season to Missouri 72-59.  It moved to the Big Ten before ending up in the Big East when Georgetown beat Michigan State on January 28th.  St. John's knocked off Georgetown only to lose two games later to Villanova.  The #6 Wildcats rattled off 4 more regular season wins culminating in a 77-59 victory over Georgetown to claim the King of the Mountain title for the 2013-2014 season.

2013-2014 Season

Streak	KOTM	Game Date	Opponent	Score
1	Missouri	11/12/13	Southern Illinois	72 - 59
2	Missouri	11/16/13	Hawaii	92 - 80
3	Missouri	11/23/13	Gardner-Webb	72 - 63
4	Missouri	11/25/13	IUPUI	78 - 64
5	Missouri	11/28/13	Northwestern	78 - 67
6	Missouri	11/29/13	Nevada	83 - 70
7	Missouri	12/5/13	West Virginia	80 - 71
8	Missouri	12/7/13	UCLA	80 - 71
9	Missouri	12/15/13	Western Michigan	66 - 60
1	Illinois	12/21/13	Missouri	65 - 64
2	Illinois	12/28/13	Illinois - Chicago	74 - 60
3	Illinois	12/31/13	Indiana	83 - 80
4	Illinois	1/4/14	Penn State	75 - 55
1	Wisconsin	1/8/14	Illinois	95 - 70
1	Indiana	1/14/14	Wisconsin	75 - 72
1	Northwestern	1/18/14	Indiana	54 - 47
2	Northwestern	1/21/14	Purdue	63 - 60
1	Iowa	1/25/14	Northwestern	76 - 50
1	Michigan State	1/28/14	Iowa	71 - 69
1	Georgetown	2/1/14	Michigan State	64 - 60
2	Georgetown	2/3/14	DePaul	71 - 59
3	Georgetown	2/8/14	Butler	71 - 63
4	Georgetown	2/10/14	Providence	83 - 71
1	St. John's (NY)	2/16/14	Georgetown	82 - 60
2	St. John's (NY)	2/18/14	Butler	77 - 52
1	Villanova	2/22/14	St. John's (NY)	57 - 54
2	Villanova	2/26/14	Butler	67 - 48
3	Villanova	3/2/14	Marquette	73 - 56
4	Villanova	3/6/14	Xavier	77 - 70
5	Villanova	3/8/14	Georgetown	77 - 59