Cancún Challenge Champions

Cancún Challenge Champions

Full list of Cancún Challenge champions, including head coach, by year. The Cancún Challenge is an early season Division I men’s college basketball tournament that has taken place annually in November since 2008. The field of eight is separated into two groups of four: the Riviera Division (high- to mid-majors) and Mayan Division (mid- to low-majors). The events starts with on-campus games, then all eight teams travel to Cancún for two separate four-team tournaments. Since 2014, the tournament games have been played at the Hard Rock Hotel Riviera Convention Center. The first team and coach listed each year were the winners of the Riviera bracket, with the second team and coach being the winners of the Mayan bracket.

Year Champion Head Coach
2008 Vanderbilt Kevin Stallings
2009 Kentucky John Calipari
Sam Houston State Bob Marlin
2010 Missouri Mike Anderson
North Florida Matthew Driscoll
2011 Illinois Bruce Weber
Lipscomb Scott Sanderson
2012 Wichita State Gregg Marshall
Gardner-Webb Chris Holtmann
2013 Wisconsin Bo Ryan
Oral Roberts Scott Sutton
2014 Northern Iowa Ben Jacobson
North Florida (2) Matthew Driscoll (2)
2015 Maryland Mark Turgeon
South Dakota State Scott Nagy
2016 Purdue Matt Painter
Georgia State Ron Hunter
2017 Louisiana Tech Eric Konkol
Montana State Brian Fish
2018 Bradley Brian Wardle
Jacksonville State Ray Harper
2019 West Virginia Bob Huggins
Gardner-Webb (2) Tim Craft
2020* Clemson Brad Brownell
2021 Saint Louis Travis Ford
Middle Tennessee Nick McDevitt
2022 Auburn Bruce Pearl
Southern Miss Jay Ladner
2023 James Madison Mark Byington
Radford Darris Nichols
2024

*2020 event was held at Titan Field House in Melbourne, FL (rebranded as the Space Coast Classic) due to COVID-19 concerns and there was just one bracket of four teams

 

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