Greatest College BB Programs Ever

[ucp990411]

And the official Top 10 is:

Kentucky
UNC
Duke
UCLA
Kansas
Louisville
Indiana
UConn
Villanova
Cincinnati

The Greatest College Basketball Programs Ever: Ranking the top teams of all time

You know who the top schools are, but can you guess them in the right order? Come look at the top shelf of college hoops

www.cbssports.com

Might want to use this in recruiting:

Storrs, Connecticut, can now claim to be home to one of the 10 best programs in college basketball history on the men's side -- and certainly the best in women's hoops. This means UConn is the best basketball school in America from a historical perspective.

How can Indiana and Loisville be ahead of us. I guess 4 championships don't carry as much weight as I think they should. I thought winning was what every program strives for. And Cincinnatti at #10? Why?????

This is a pretty narrow-minded and reductive view, not to mention boring. You can probably find the list of programs ranked by titles on wikipedia, but it's going to tell you that San Francisco is better than Syracuse and Arizona. Louisville is one of the all-time great programs, and by most metrics, they've been better than UConn. Yes, UConn has one more national championship than Louisville, but is that more important than everything else? How about Kansas? They only have three.

Which 3 did Louisville win?

 

[CallMeBruce]

Which 3 did Louisville win?

Are you being cheeky or do you really not know how to google?

 

[Mr. French]

Are you being cheeky or do you really not know how to google?

I think he's referring to the vacated title. Which isn't a terrible point. They had Crum then nothing then hired Pitino who clearly was doing a ton of cheating ... and they won 1 title with Pitino. Calling them blue blood is a bit much to me, but they're clearly top 10 no question.

 

[NJHusky]

Forgot UCLA, but no way Louisville should be ranked ahead of us with 3 titles and Rick Pitino.

They are counting the forfeited title in the calculation....WHY???

 

[ucp990411]

How can Indiana and Loisville be ahead of us. I guess 4 championships don't carry as much weight as I think they should. I thought winning was what every program strives for. And Cincinnatti at #10? Why?????

Which 3 did Louisville win?

2013 does not count

 

[CallMeBruce]

I think he's referring to the vacated title. Which isn't a terrible point. They had Crum then nothing then hired Pitino who clearly was doing a ton of cheating ... and they won 1 title with Pitino. Calling them blue blood is a bit much to me, but they're clearly top 10 no question.

It is a terrible point, because if you read the piece you'd see that he's not vacating titles, because that is stupid nonsense for babies.

 

[ucp990411]

Cinci in the top 10 seems ridiculous. Louisville ahead of UConn is just wrong. But all we need to do to fix that is have some good years ahead as they watch the shambles of the stained and sullied tatters of their program fall.

Syracuse, Mich St, Florida, Arizona all are ahead of Cincinnatti

 

[ucp990411]

It is a terrible point, because if you read the piece you'd see that he's not vacating titles, because that is stupid nonsense for babies.

Yeah, winning by cheating is OK. See UNC and the Astros

 

[CallMeBruce]

Yeah, winning by cheating is OK. See UNC and the Astros

real quick: do those titles still count?

 

[Mr. French]

It is a terrible point, because if you read the piece you'd see that he's not vacating titles, because that is stupid nonsense for babies.

Ok, that seems a bit angry. I guess we'll disagree that Pitino being one of the biggest cheaters in history is or isn't important.

I'm not saying they're not a great historical program, with plenty of recent history. Jordan Nwora is my guy and I like Chris Mack a ton. But they're not in the class with Duke, UK, KU and UNC. In my opinion, the next tier would be UCLA, then UConn, Louisville and Indiana. I don't know why you're so angry about that.

 

[Mr. French]

real quick: do those titles still count?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2018/02/20/louisville-basketball-will-vacate-2013-national-championship-as-ncaa-upholds-ruling/

Doesn't look like Louisville's does. Nor does their 2012 FF appearance.

 

[ucp990411]

real quick: do those titles still count?

Yup. But 2013 for Louisville was vacated so that one doesn't count.

 

[BigTenFan]

I see your point on Indiana. To dig even deeper, since 1994, Indiana has made it past the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament only 5 times. One of those times was the fluke Final Four and Championship game appearance in 2002. People point to our 2014 Championship and say that was a "fluke". I disagree because it is hard to win a National Championship, therefore, there are no such thing as "fluke" National Championships. It's a big step from the Elite 8 compared to the Final Four, and it's also a huge step from winning the National Championship compared to just an appearance in the Final Four.

Bottom line with Indiana is the legend and legacy of Bob Knight is still strong...as it should be. But, for all the schools in the blue blood conversation, Indiana by far has had the least success going back 20+ years.

IU has 5 National Banners hanging in Assembly Hall and the last undefeated team. As a long suffering IU fan and graduate -I can only hope Indiana can return to relevance

 

[hank970]

Sorry folks, but if you don't like the results, you should have mounted a campaign several months ago alleging that the analysis was going to be rigged unless UConn was at the very top of the pile. First, accuse CBSSports of a liberal bias. Then demand that the rating criteria be altered over and over and over again until you get the results you want. For example, specify that no school should receive consideration unless its mascot is some breed of dog and its colors* are Navy blue, white and gray. That should narrow the field enough to get you a higher ranking.

*I detect a lot of envy and sour grapes in this thread. Maybe UConn should change its school color to green.

 

[brasssbonanzaa]

I also never counted UConn or Villanova in that group. I think we can join it in the next 10 years if the results warrant it. Likewise, 'Nova can make the cut in the next 15 years.

UConn is tied or leads in most national championships in the past (starting from 2019) 10 years, 20 years, since the turn of the century, and the last 25 years. A total of five programs have more titles.

But not yet in this arbitrary blue blood group?

 

[Watchdog]

They are counting the forfeited title in the calculation....WHY???

Yup. But 2013 for Louisville was vacated so that one doesn't count.

Vacated games were counted. See the rationale used:
"Each team had their categories added up and that led to a point total. All appearances in the NCAA Tournament, Final Four, all vacated wins did count in this scenario. The teams played those games, and won or lost them. They happened, so they count. "

My bet is the criteria were massaged until they got the results they wanted. Why else would you count NBA picks (weighted heavily toward the higher picks)? The fact those picks helped with other criteria, like wins and titles and tournament bids, Final Fours and National Championships is double dipping IMHO.

 

[Watchdog]

And the official Top 10 is:


The criteria chosen and the choice of point levels awarded for each leaves open lots of possibilities for "massaging the data" until the basic ranking you want is achieved. Not likely to get it exactly as you want it but putting it all on a spread sheet and changing point awards for each category until you get close is certainly possible.

For example, the award of points for NBA picks is one way to award more points to schools that have already piled up lots of points with wins, championships, etc. It just seems redundant to me.

See all criteria and how points were awarded:

"CBS Sports' assembly of the 68 best programs in history (read the ranking of Nos. 68-51 and Nos. 50-26) was objectively driven by the data. Still, I did need to come up with categories and assign values to them. I relied upon wins and losses, NCAA Tournament success, conference dominance, NIT titles -- because it was a significant tournament for decades, and even still is a marked achievement in today's age -- and the cultivation of NBA talent. Those categories' points were added up and the master order was determined. "

1. NCAA Tournament championships (20 points)
2. Final Four appearances without a national title (10 points)
3. Regular-season titles (5 points)
4. Elite Eights without making the Final Four (3 points)
5. NIT titles (3 points)
6. NCAA Tournament bids (2 points)
7. Wins (0.5 points)
8. Losses (-0.5 points)
9. Wins over ranked opponents (0.5 points)
10. Weeks ranked (0.1 point)
11. Top-10 NBA picks (5 points)
12. 11-30 NBA picks (3 points)
13. 31-60 NBA picks (1 point)

 

[M.S.G.]

I don't have huge issues with the top 5, but seeing Cincinnati and Louisville there do irk me a bit. I really think UConn should be sitting at #6.

At the end of the day, it's not the end of the world.

This does kind of vilify our claims that we are a blue blood, and that in itself does please me.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

I would argue that through 1970, an NIT title should be roughly equivalent to an NCAA title. I believe the 1970 Marquette team was the last big time program to turn down an NCAA bid for an NIT bid, but prior to 1970, the NIT was usually the deeper tournament because it was entirely at-large bids while the NCAA had mostly automatic bids, quite a few of which went to weak teams from weak conferences. Look at some of the teams UCLA played before the Final Four to win its early titles. There were a lot of wins over teams like UC Santa Barbara, New Mexico State and Santa Clara.

The NCAA Tournament didn't start to look like the modern tournament until the mid 70's, when it began significant expansion and also stopped the practice of regional bracketing in the early rounds (I can't find exactly when the regional bracketing ended). In 1981 the NCAA added the 3 point line, in 1985 it expanded the tournament to 64 teams, and in 1986 it added a shot clock. It is really hard to compare what happened prior to those three events with what happened after.

A championship from 1960 should be worth maybe half the value of a championship from 1990 or 2020.

 

[UConn76]

They have more NCAA appearances, more wins, a better record overall, more final fours, and more weeks ranked.

Have to remember that they were very good in the "Never Nervous Purvis" era...

 

[Get a Job]

That's like saying UConn women's bball are not a blue blood 60 years from now, only because they didn't win a title they in 25 years.

If the women go 25 years without winning a title, and are not in a bunch of Final Fours in that span, then, yes, I would not consider them a blue blood anymore.

 

[Palatine]

So happy to see this FINALLY acknowledged.

But UConn wasn't only good with Calhoun. It made the NCAAs in '51, '54, '56-60, '63-65, '67, '76 and '79. So there was something there. Calhoun just cracked open a behemoth...

 

[Get a Job]

UConn is tied or leads in most national championships in the past (starting from 2019) 10 years, 20 years, since the turn of the century, and the last 25 years. A total of five programs have more titles.

But not yet in this arbitrary blue blood group?

I dunno, maybe I have an inferiority complex. Perhaps it feels to me to be a little bit like giving oneself one's own nickname. But, for whatever reason, I've never held our program to be at the same "blue blood" level as UK, KU, Duke and UNC. UConn is next in line in my mind, and will be included in that first group if and when we have some big successes (a few Final Fours, at least 1 championship, NCAAT every year) in the next 10 years.

Note: Everything I say in this thread should be read with the caveat that this whole discussion is somewhat stupid and extremely subjective. Definitely fun, though!

 

[87Xfer]

I dunno, maybe I have an inferiority complex. Perhaps it feels to me to be a little bit like giving oneself one's own nickname. But, for whatever reason, I've never held our program to be at the same "blue blood" level as UK, KU, Duke and UNC. UConn is next in line in my mind, and will be included in that first group if and when we have some big successes (a few Final Fours, at least 1 championship, NCAAT every year) in the next 10 years.

Note: Everything I say in this thread should be read with the caveat that this whole discussion is somewhat stupid and extremely subjective. Definitely fun, though!

Agreed

 

[Waquoit]

I still feel like UConn is treated by the bluebloods the way the Italian Cycling team treated Dave in Breaking Away. Never really accepted.