Runnin' the field: '90 Rebels dwarf Heels as best ever

In the days following one of the more dominating college basketball title game performances in recent history, there is now an inevitable debate: What is the best championship team ever?

Larry Johnson averaged 21.6 points and 11.2 rebounds at UNLV. He was just one of the Rebels' stars. (Getty Images)

It happens every year and this year the answer is the same as it was last season and the season before that and the season before that. There's only one answer and it's not even close. It's the 1990 UNLV team.

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They beat Duke in the championship game by 30 points, a drubbing that still stands as a record almost two decades after it occurred.

The Running Rebels went to a level of dominance we hadn't seen since John Wooden's UCLA teams and strictly in terms of one team -- just one, not a dynasty -- they were the best. They would've beaten these Tar Heels by 20 points and the two-time Florida Gators titlists by 40.

Don't believe me? Ask one of the Duke players who went against UNLV. Former guard Thomas Hill told Rivals.com that his championship Duke team would've beaten "Florida by 30. UNLV would have won by 50. They just had a great swagger about them and were more mature than us."

"That bunch with [forward] Larry Johnson ... just manhandled you," said former Arkansas coach Nolan Richardson, who watched some of his greatest Razorbacks teams lose to UNLV. "They were men playing with boys. I think (UNLV) is the best team I've ever seen. I'm not sure anyone else is even close."

Not even close.

And for those who never got to see them play that is one of the things that distinguishes UNLV. They were a group of men. Their maturity level was as stratospheric as their builds and athleticism.

If you compiled a top 10 list of the most dominating sports seasons ever, on the list might be one of the Montreal Canadiens teams, a Green Bay Packers team from the 1960s, one of Michael Jordan's Chicago teams, maybe one of the University of Connecticut women's basketball teams and somewhere in the seven to 10 range would be UNLV.

They were that good.

Poll Which team was better? 31% 2009 North Carolina   69% 1990 UNLV   Total Votes: 2572

I covered a number of UNLV's games during their dominant two-year run and there's no question some of the teams they played were afraid of them. Flat out scared. They were the college basketball equivalent of Mike Tyson.

They beat teams by an average of 27 points and won 34 straight games. They won a lot and destroyed people in the process. The only thing that stopped UNLV was arrogance. It was arrogance that allowed Duke to upset them in the subsequent Final Four and unbridled arrogance that eventually burned down the whole thing as the NCAA finally caught up to the scandal-plagued program.

Before the arrogance came unmatched brilliance. I'll take the UNLV starting lineup of Larry Johnson (who averaged 21.6 points and 11.2 rebounds a game while shooting 66.2 percent from the field), Stacey Augmon, George Ackles, Greg Anthony and Anderson Hunt and put them against any collection of college basketball all-stars from any era and still win comfortably.

Let me repeat that for the hard of reading. You can have Lew Alcindor or Bill Walton or Christian Laettner or the college Jordan, and any collection of guards and forwards, and I'll take UNLV, and I'll win as easily as the Tar Heels did on Monday night.

Johnson was the No. 1 overall draft pick in 1991. Anthony and Augmon were both lottery selections; those two played almost a combined 30 years in the NBA.

The talent, unselfishness and chemistry of that team make them unmatched.

It's not even close.