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 | ||
*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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