10 best NCAA Basketball schools to obsess over

[tzznandrew]

I just think Kansas gets way too much respect without much in the way of recent championships.
Also, by your rationale, wouldn't UCLA be #1?. I guess championships won 40-50 years ago make me respect a program but not "obsess" over it

????

Not only do they have recent championships in 1988 and 2008, but they also have as many Final Fours since 2000 as UConn has in its entire history.

UCLA should be ranked pretty high, definitely higher than UConn as an historic program. But I'm one more impressed with championships with different groups of players than with the same set. And UCLA won 10 of its 11 championships almost consecutively. That program is one coach, really. So I knock them for that. But, again, they have more Final Fours outside of the Wooden era than UConn has in it's history. So they're impressive enough to be ranked highly, but since almost all their success came in a 12 year window, they aren't UNC or Kentucky.

 

[David 76]

I'm pretty sure the same set of players were not at UCLA for those 12 years!

But here's my deal, in 15 years we are tied for 6th in the all time championships in the NCAA.
In the past 20 years only KY and UCONN have 3 championships.
In the past 15 years, we stand alone in championships.
In recruiting/developing players that go to the NBA we are in the top 2 or 3 in every ranking.
As the article said "In terms of recency, the Huskies are about as relevant as it gets"
Our trajectory is better than anyone's and while I think KY and Duke are still ahead of us, I don't concede that to anyone else including Kansas and North Carolina.
If you don't like our relatively low number of Final Four appearances, look at our Elite Eight appearances.
I just don't think we need to defer to anyone.

 

[Senore]

I don't think Kansas or 'Ville should be ahead of us

Both have an awful lot of history. Louisville has been in the national top 3 of attendance for the last 57 years. They once went 46 consecutive years without a sub-.500 record.

Kansas had the inventor of the sport coach there, lol. Everybody comes from Kansas. It's like the Original Hoops Gene.

 

[Inyatkin]

I'm pretty sure the same set of players were not at UCLA for those 12 years!

But here's my deal, in 15 years we are tied for 6th in the all time championships in the NCAA.
In the past 20 years only KY and UCONN have 3 championships.
In the past 15 years, we stand alone in championships.
In recruiting/developing players that go to the NBA we are in the top 2 or 3 in every ranking.
As the article said "In terms of recency, the Huskies are about as relevant as it gets"
Our trajectory is better than anyone's and while I think KY and Duke are still ahead of us, I don't concede that to anyone else including Kansas and North Carolina.
If you don't like our relatively low number of Final Four appearances, look at our Elite Eight appearances.
I just don't think we need to defer to anyone.

We don't defer to anyone, but realistically all our major success is tied to one coach. I hope that changes, and think it will, but until it does we are Jim Calhoun U. while everyone else at the top has spread it across multiple eras.
It shows how great Calhoun was that he got us to that level all by himself.

 

[tzznandrew]

I'm pretty sure the same set of players were not at UCLA for those 12 years!

But here's my deal, in 15 years we are tied for 6th in the all time championships in the NCAA.
In the past 20 years only KY and UCONN have 3 championships.
In the past 15 years, we stand alone in championships.
In recruiting/developing players that go to the NBA we are in the top 2 or 3 in every ranking.
As the article said "In terms of recency, the Huskies are about as relevant as it gets"
Our trajectory is better than anyone's and while I think KY and Duke are still ahead of us, I don't concede that to anyone else including Kansas and North Carolina.
If you don't like our relatively low number of Final Four appearances, look at our Elite Eight appearances.
I just don't think we need to defer to anyone.

How could you not concede North Carolina? They have 2009, 2005, 1993, 1982 all recently, and with two different coaches. They have 9 Final Fours since 1990. Ranking us ahead of them is pure crazy talk.

As for UCLA: Indeed, there were different players, but the overlap, and the fact that they were all with one coach in such a short succession of time, means that I discount it (personally) a little bit. I put them 3rd behind Kentucky and UNC.

15-20 years is not a large enough scale--it doesn't trump what everyone else did before. And our trajectory? I mean, we can't really project out comfortably with a new coach, new league, etc.

http://xkcd.com/605/

 

[tzznandrew]

Both have an awful lot of history. Louisville has been in the national top 3 of attendance for the last 57 years. They once went 46 consecutive years without a sub-.500 record.

Kansas had the inventor of the sport coach there, lol. Everybody comes from Kansas. It's like the Original Hoops Gene.

Yeah, I think we can argue UConn and Louisville a little (although the third title gives you the edge right now), but neither UConn nor Louisville measure up to Kansas' history.

 

[David 76]

No one can even fully express what JC did for UCONN. Huge!

I really do understand and respect the history at programs like KY, UCLA, Kansas, IN, Duke & NC. (Many of which are also mostly 1 coach programs--UCLA, Duke, Indiana).
I just tire of the Blue-Blood attitude versus blue-collar UCONN.
So if your judging NCAA history, they have it all over us.
If you look at recent success based on data (not reverence), we are second to no one.

 

[HuskyHawk]

How could you not concede North Carolina? They have 2009, 2005, 1993, 1982 all recently, and with two different coaches. They have 9 Final Fours since 1990. Ranking us ahead of them is pure crazy talk.

As for UCLA: Indeed, there were different players, but the overlap, and the fact that they were all with one coach in such a short succession of time, means that I discount it (personally) a little bit. I put them 3rd behind Kentucky and UNC.

15-20 years is a large enough scale--they don't trump what everyone else did before. And our trajectory? I mean, we can't really project out comfortably with a new coach, new league, etc.

+1 on this. I don't know how old some of these people are, but UConn has been playing basketball a long time. So we went a long time with zero final fours. To just ignore history is absurb. For example you can't just erase the fact that the single greatest player in the history of college basketball went to Kansas. Titles are nice, but winning, year after year, decade after decade, that's what really separates the great programs. If anything, UConn is too high on this list, and is probably getting some credit for the women.

Alabama was still Alabama in football, long before Nick Saban got there. He just reinforced it.

 

[David 76]

How could you not concede North Carolina?

Because I hate them?

 

[tzznandrew]

No one can even fully express what JC did for UCONN. Huge!

I really do understand and respect the history at programs like KY, UCLA, Kansas, IN, Duke & NC. (Many of which are also mostly 1 coach programs--UCLA, Duke, Indiana).
I just tire of the Blue-Blood attitude versus blue-collar UCONN.
So if your judging NCAA history, they have it all over us.
If you look at recent success based on data (not reverence), we are second to no one.

Duke went to Final Fours before K, but they're probably the closest to UConn in terms of being a one coach team.

Branch McCracken had two titles at Indiana before Bobby Knight showed up, so there's that. We can trash them because those titles are really old (and we should, a little), but their success is older than one coach. They need to get there again, though, to be taken as seriously as they take themselves.

UCLA has had success with a couple of different coaches as well. Herrick won a title there, and both Larry Brown and Ben Howland took them to Final Fours as well. But yeah, they've been on (slightly) down times, relative to their absurd peak, and relative to the other top programs.

Recent success is important, but you can't just ignore that history. It still plays a part in a teams success. You can't look at the 20th century and then conclude the Red Sox are a better organization than the Yankees.

UConn is behind Indiana, UCLA, Kentucky, Kansas, Duke, UNC, and then, in the second tier, behind Louisville and ahead of everyone else. That's damn good. And we're not (and shouldn't be) afraid of, or in awe of, any of those teams with deeper history. But we should know our place and aim to supplant those teams.

 

[David 76]

Again, I wasn't discussing history. "Teams to Obsess over" was the title. Not Teams to have obsessed over or teams it was impressive to read about.
I concede history.
I really do appreciate the history.
But I proudly hang on to the opinion that no one has really been better than us lately.
Speaking of history, at what point did the NCAA championship become the arbiter of the best team?

 

[methodology]

I just think Kansas gets way too much respect without much in the way of recent championships.
Also, by your rationale, wouldn't UCLA be #1?. I guess championships won 40-50 years ago make me respect a program but not "obsess" over it

You are really underrating Kansas and overrating UConn. Kansas is a top 3 program period. UConn is anywhere from 7-10 depending on what you value more.

And saying Kansas has no recent championships is quite a visionary look at history.

Since 1999... Currently on a 10 year streak of winning the Big 12 regular season, next longest is 3 years by 4 teams with none being in a major conference. Their current streak is 3rd longest ALL Time in college basketball and it is also the longest current streak of winning division/conference in all sports (professional and college). During this span they have won 6 of 9 Big 12 tournaments and are looking to make it 7 of 10 this year.

If you go back to 1999 they have 12 regular season titles.

They have not missed the NCAA tournament since 1989, 25 years ago, and have reached 6 final 4s during that span (4 Final 4 since 1999) and have 1 title in 2008 (3 titles total)

 

[Senore]

You are really underrating Kansas and overrating UConn. Kansas is a top 3 program period. UConn is anywhere from 7-10 depending on what you value more.

And saying Kansas has no recent championships is quite a visionary look at history.

Since 1999... Currently on a 10 year streak of winning the Big 12 regular season, next longest is 3 years by 4 teams with none being in a major conference. Their current streak is 3rd longest ALL Time in college basketball and it is also the longest current streak of winning division/conference in all sports (professional and college). During this span they have won 6 of 9 Big 12 tournaments and are looking to make it 7 of 10 this year.

If you go back to 1999 they have 12 regular season titles.

They have not missed the NCAA tournament since 1989, 25 years ago, and have reached 6 final 4s during that span (4 Final 4 since 1999) and have 1 title in 2008 (3 titles total)

The fact that you are rated this high is a compliment - and one delivered by all of basketball with the usual soreheads, lol. Your record since the mid 90's is simply better than it gets. You're the "hot item" for historians, making a great argument comparing eras. What Calhoun did was maybe second to Wooden, winning 3 titles and one just by letting talent have its way, like Wooden did with the Hazzard/Goodrich teams (when Crum assisted there). As a comparison, UofL had someone even before Crum who could have been HOF - Peck Hickman. But they hired Denny and Pitino afterwards. (And even they only won as many as Jim).


The women are totally a side issue.
Nice game, btw.