Greatest College BB Programs Ever | Page 5 | The Boneyard

Greatest College BB Programs Ever

freescooter said:
That is what I was saying about Providence they had 2 NIT titles that they won when the NIT was really seen as the better tournament. Deeper field, no automatic bids. At large teams in particular often chose it over the NCAAs. I’m not sure I agree that rule changes like the 3 point line and shot clock made the Championship tougher. Those changed the game some but not sure they made it tougher but certainly the expansion to 48 then 64 did.
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Shot Clock: Pre shot clock, the team with the lead had a huge advantage in the last 10 minutes (obviously), forcing the team in the hole to take bigger and bigger risks. This cut both ways, because underdogs could be up late too.

The bigger issue was that size had a huge advantage both because of no shot clock, and because of no 3 point line. The higher profile teams generally had the size, making it harder for lower ranked teams to pull the upset.

With the shot clock, a lot of marginal strategies, like LMU's over-the-top press or Arkansas' 40 minutes of hell, became a lot more effective. In the old days, pressing was a big risk if the other team had a couple of good ballhandlers, because they could play keep away until they got someone wide open under the basket. With a 45, and later a 35, second shot clock, if the press caused a team to burn 15 seconds getting into its offense, it was an effective press, because 20 seconds is not a long time to have to play half court defense.

3 point line: With the 3 point line, EVERYTHING changed. Slower, shorter teams suddenly had a shot if they had a couple of kids that could shoot 3's. Huge upsets became possible, which made it a lot harder to win the 6 games needed to win a National Championship. The 21-10 mid-major conference champ only had to get hot for one game to enter the history books, and many of those kind of teams have.


I would add a few other things making it harder to maintain excellence today than it was 40 or 50 years ago:

1) AAU - AAU is more pervasive than it was 30 or 40 years ago. This means the talent level is deeper for the second, third and fourth tier programs.

2) Foreign Players - The arrival of the foreign players in the 80's had an immediate impact. Olajuwon was the biggest name, but players like Andrew Gaze and Nadav Henefeld transformed their programs, and the college game. By the end of the 90's, and beyond, college basketball played a more passing and shooting style rather than simply taking it to the hole style.

3) Analytics - these have changed every major sport at every level. There are good coaches everywhere today, and mid-major coaches have more and better information to coach with than the top programs had 40 years ago.
 
nelsonmuntz said:
Shot Clock: Pre shot clock, the team with the lead had a huge advantage in the last 10 minutes (obviously), forcing the team in the hole to take bigger and bigger risks. This cut both ways, because underdogs could be up late too.

The bigger issue was that size had a huge advantage both because of no shot clock, and because of no 3 point line. The higher profile teams generally had the size, making it harder for lower ranked teams to pull the upset.

With the shot clock, a lot of marginal strategies, like LMU's over-the-top press or Arkansas' 40 minutes of hell, became a lot more effective. In the old days, pressing was a big risk if the other team had a couple of good ballhandlers, because they could play keep away until they got someone wide open under the basket. With a 45, and later a 35, second shot clock, if the press caused a team to burn 15 seconds getting into its offense, it was an effective press, because 20 seconds is not a long time to have to play half court defense.

3 point line: With the 3 point line, EVERYTHING changed. Slower, shorter teams suddenly had a shot if they had a couple of kids that could shoot 3's. Huge upsets became possible, which made it a lot harder to win the 6 games needed to win a National Championship. The 21-10 mid-major conference champ only had to get hot for one game to enter the history books, and many of those kind of teams have.


I would add a few other things making it harder to maintain excellence today than it was 40 or 50 years ago:

1) AAU - AAU is more pervasive than it was 30 or 40 years ago. This means the talent level is deeper for the second, third and fourth tier programs.

2) Foreign Players - The arrival of the foreign players in the 80's had an immediate impact. Olajuwon was the biggest name, but players like Andrew Gaze and Nadav Henefeld transformed their programs, and the college game. By the end of the 90's, and beyond, college basketball played a more passing and shooting style rather than simply taking it to the hole style.

3) Analytics - these have changed every major sport at every level. There are good coaches everywhere today, and mid-major coaches have more and better information to coach with than the top programs had 40 years ago.
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The game has also changed with one and done players and programs.
Kentucky is the poster child for recruiting kids to play only one year
 
St. john’s & Georgetown could’ve been the elite of the elites looking back
 
Waquoit said:
I still feel like UConn is treated by the bluebloods the way the Italian Cycling team treated Dave in Breaking Away. Never really accepted.
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I can't be the only one who likes it this way.
 
Syracuse fans put us below them and one had us equal to Florida.
 
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BoukofJames said:
I didn’t realize Cincinnati was considered an all-time great program, but I always enjoy our battles with them. Their team identity fits so well in the Big East (and they used to recruit very well in NYC) and their football program seems to have outgrown the AAC. Im sure they’d love to join a power football conference but I wonder if football independence and re-joining the Big East is a better position for them than their current state. I really don’t know enough about the dynamics of college football to say, but I would like to see another public university join the Big East
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after seeing what happened to UConn's football team this year no school is going to willingly go independent again but that's neither here nor there
 
Back in my day...it was UCLA...no question...

88 consecutive wins...

11 national championships

90 win home game streak
 
billybud said:
Back in my day...it was UCLA...no question...

88 consecutive wins...

11 national championships

90 win home game streak
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And bags and bags of cash.

This is why Louisville’s and everyone else’s wins count. If you start taking away wins, you have to take away the champ with the most titles.
 
So dominant were the Bruins that Marvin Barnes of Providence said at the time, “You beat those guys and you’ve beaten history, an institution and the gods.
 
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CallMeBruce said:
Don't be ridiculous. Norlander did not change the formula to get certain results. If anything, the way he treated the numbers helped us, as everyone one of those Yankee Conference titles counted the same as our Big East titles.
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How dare you denigrate the championships won in the widely overlooked, yet mighty, Yankee Conference.

To believe no one would massage the data you have to be certain no one would ever be biased in their choice of criteria and the weighting and assignment of point values for the criteria chosen, nor use a spread sheet, in which they can assign/change point values for the criteria as they see fit, as the means to rank the teams.

For one thing why all the points for NBA draft picks, with weighting based on the round in which they're chosen? Great players help teams win in college and this list is supposed to be about college teams. The wins and losses, tournament bids and championships, and all the first ten criteria make sense, but 11, 12 and 13 do not because the player's effect on the college game is accounted for in wins and losses, etc.

The other glaring example of what's wrong with the list is how points were assigned for NIT championships. Either the the writer knows nothing about the history of the college game or didn't want to choose a date for when the two tournaments swapped positions of prominence and assign values for those championships based on the eras in which they were won. 20 points for all NCAA championships and 3 for all NIT championships is a disservice to the great NIT winners in the earlier years and way too many points for the NCAA winners in the earlier years.
  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)
 
Watchdog said:
How dare you denigrate the championships won in the widely overlooked, yet mighty, Yankee Conference.

To believe no one would massage the data you have to be certain no one would ever be biased in their choice of criteria and the weighting and assignment of point values for the criteria chosen, nor use a spread sheet, in which they can assign/change point values for the criteria as they see fit, as the means to rank the teams.

For one thing why all the points for NBA draft picks, with weighting based on the round in which they're chosen? Great players help teams win in college and this list is supposed to be about college teams. The wins and losses, tournament bids and championships, and all the first ten criteria make sense, but 11, 12 and 13 do not because the player's effect on the college game is accounted for in wins and losses, etc.

The other glaring example of what's wrong with the list is how points were assigned for NIT championships. Either the the writer knows nothing about the history of the college game or didn't want to choose a date for when the two tournaments swapped positions of prominence and assign values for those championships based on the eras in which they were won. 20 points for all NCAA championships and 3 for all NIT championships is a disservice to the great NIT winners in the earlier years and way too many points for the NCAA winners in the earlier years.
  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)
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That’s is absolutely right. NBA drat pick are a completely bogus factor at worst or double counting at best. Teams with lots of nba picks usually have lots of wins. And under rating the NIT in the 50 s and 60s is foolish or shows a lack of knowledge of the games history. Same with giving equal points for conference titles. In all honesty can anyone make the case that winning the Yankee Conference in 1963 was comparable to winning the Big East in 1995? Or the PAC 8 or Big 8 or ACC in 1965? It would be like saying Vermont and UConn are comparable programs because UConn won 7 Big East titles and Vermont won 7 NEC crowns.
 
Zissou said:
All Time
1-UCLA
2-Kentucky
3-UNC
4-Duke
5-Indiana
6-Kansas
7-UConn
8-Louisville
9-Nova
10-Mich State

Modern Era - since 1980
1-UNC
2-Duke
3-UConn
4-Kentucky
5-Louisville
6-Nova
7-Kansas
8-Florida
9-Indiana
10-Mich State

Last 5 Years
1-Nova
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Football for comparison

All time
1-Princeton
2-Yale
3-Alabama
4-Michigan
5-Notre Dame
6-USC
7-Pitt
8-Ohio State
9-Harvard
10-Oklahoma

Modern Era
1-Alabama
2-Miami
3-Nebraska
4-LSU
5-Florida
6-USC
7-Washington
8-Oklahoma
9-Ohio State
10-Penn State
 
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Zissou said:
All Time
1-UCLA
2-Kentucky
3-UNC
4-Duke
5-Indiana
6-Kansas
7-UConn
8-Louisville
9-Nova
10-Mich State

Modern Era - since 1980
1-UNC
2-Duke
3-UConn
4-Kentucky
5-Louisville
6-Nova
7-Kansas
8-Florida
9-Indiana
10-Mich State

Last 5 Years
1-Nova
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I might have a few small tweaks, and as much as it pains me I might have Duke over UNC in the 1 spot in the modern era, but obviously that's very close with UNC winning in 82/93 ... but overall I'd say for a Nova fan you did a pretty good job here.
 
Zissou said:
Football for comparison

All time
1-Princeton
2-Yale
3-Alabama
4-Michigan
5-Notre Dame
6-USC
7-Pitt
8-Ohio State
9-Harvard
10-Oklahoma

Modern Era
1-Alabama
2-Miami
3-Nebraska
4-LSU
5-Florida
6-USC
7-Washington
8-Oklahoma
9-Ohio State
10-Penn State
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No Florida State?
 
HooperScooper said:
And the official Top 10 is:

Kentucky
UNC
Duke
UCLA
Kansas
Louisville
Indiana
UConn
Villanova
Cincinnati

www.cbssports.com

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 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.
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I never bag on these guys but can't resist today? Where's cuuuuuse?
 
Weird there's only one Big Ten school worthy of this list given how powerful a basketball conference. I have spent time in Big Ten country, crazy basketball region, the cold weather sends everyone indoors to work on their game. Michigan and Michigan St. have every recruiting advantage in the world with lockdown of Detroit and easy recruiting access to Milwaukee, Chicago, all major Ohio cities. Baffling why they aren't more successful in basketball (and UM w/ football, atrocious).
 
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