The Cancun Challenge ( es, Desafío Cancún) is a college basketball tournament organized by Triple Crown Sports which currently features eight
NCAA
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...
Division I men's basketball teams and ten women's basketball teams. The formats of the men's and women's tournaments have varied from year to year. The men's tournament currently splits the eight teams into two divisions of four and consists of games played in the United States at participants' campus sites followed by a bracketed tournament played in (or near)
Cancún,
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
. The women's tournament splits the ten teams into one division of six and one division of four and each features
round-robin play in Cancún with no bracket, and therefore no champion. The two divisions in each tournament are the Riviera Division and the Mayan Division.
The Mexico portion of the event has been held at multiple venues in and around Cancún. The inaugural 2005 tournament was relocated from the Moon Palace Resort to the Aventura Spa Palace Resort in
Playa del Carmen shortly before it was scheduled to occur due to damage sustained at the original location from
Hurricane Wilma
Hurricane Wilma was an extremely intense and destructive Atlantic hurricane which was the most intense storm of its kind and the second-most intense tropical cyclone recorded in the Western Hemisphere, after Hurricane Patricia in 2015. Part ...
. The tournament was held at one of these two sites each year up until 2014, when it would be moved to the Hard Rock Hotel Riviera Maya, where it has been held since.
CBS Sports Network
CBS Sports Network (a.k.a. CBSSN) is an American pay television network owned by the CBS Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Global. When it launched in 2002 as the National College Sports Network (later College Sports Television also known as ...
televises the men's Riviera Division games. All Mexico games in the men's Mayan Division along with all women's games are streamed on FloHoops.
Previous men's champions include Vanderbilt (2008), Kentucky (2009), Missouri (2010), Illinois (2011), Wichita State (2012), Wisconsin (2013), Northern Iowa (2014), Maryland (2015), Purdue (2016), LA Tech (2017), Bradley (2018), West Virginia (2019), Clemson (2020), Saint Louis (2021) and Auburn (2022). Previous women's participating teams include marquee programs such as Arizona State, Baylor, Duke, Georgia Tech, Iowa, Iowa State, Kansas State, Maryland, Oklahoma, Purdue, Seton Hall, Stanford, UCLA, and Washington, among others.
Brackets
* – Denotes overtime period
2022
Men's
= Riviera Division
=
= Mayan Division
=
2021
Men's
= Riviera Division
=
= Mayan Division
=
Women's
All games streamed on FloHoops.com
=Mayan Division
=
=Riviera Division
=
2020 Space Coast Classic
Due to
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
the 2020 Cancún Challenge was not held, instead a 4 team tournament was branded as the Space Coast Challenge, games were played at
Titan Field House in
Melbourne, FL
Melbourne is a city in Brevard County, Florida, United States. It is located southeast of Orlando. As of th2020 Decennial Census there was a population of 84,678. The municipality is the second-largest in the county by both size and population. ...
.
2019
Men's
=Riviera Division
=
=Mayan Division
=
Women's
=Riviera Division
=
=Mayan Division
=
2018
Men's
=Riviera Division
=
=Mayan Division
=
Women's
Riviera Division
Mayan Division
2017
Men's
=Riviera Division
=
=Mayan Division
=
Women's
=Riviera Division
=
=Mayan Division
=
2016
Men's
=Riviera Division
=
=Mayan Division
=
Women's
=Riviera Division
=
=Mayan Division
=
2015
Men's
=Riviera Division
=
=Mayan Division
=
Women's
=Riviera Division
=
=Mayan Division
=
2014
Men's
=Riviera Division
=
=Mayan Division
=
Women's
=Riviera Division
=
=Mayan Division
=
2013
Men's
=Riviera Division
=
=Mayan Division
=
Women's
=Riviera Division
=
=Mayan Division
=
2012
Men's
=Riviera Division
=
=Mayan Division
=
2011
Men's
=Riviera Division
=
=Mayan Division
=
2010
Men's
=Riviera Division
=
Mayan Division
2009
Men's
=Riviera Division
=
=Mayan Division
=
2008
Men's
=Riviera Division
=
References
External links
Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cancun Challenge
College basketball competitions
Basketball competitions in Mexico
Sport in Cancún
2008 establishments in Mexico
Recurring sporting events established in 2008