Is 1999 Duke the best basketball team ever?

[Husky25]

Ok, after 4 pages of this, i have to watch this game again! I actually have it on vhs tape somewhere, lol. The amazing thing about that team is I believe we beat every team in the top 10 of the final AP poll, amazing!

It's on YouTube. @tcf15 has a link to it as well above.

 

[QuickDraw]

The 99 Duke team wasn't even the best team to not win the national title like others have expressed. The UNLV teams from the Tarkanian era, the Houston teams mentioned and even the fab five Wolverines to name a few. Many media folks fell in love with that team especially Elton Brand that year as dominant as he was but they lacked experience and JC simply out coached his counter part with a veteran team that had been well battle tested and exploited it to their advantage.

 

[tzznandrew]

The amazing thing about that team is I believe we beat every team in the top 10 of the final AP poll, amazing!

I can't find a post-tournament poll for the AP. The pre-tournament poll was:

1. Duke (W)
2. Michigan State (W)
3. UConn
4. Auburn
5. Maryland
6. Utah
7. Stanford (W)
8. Kentucky
9. St. John's (2-0)
10. Miami (1-1)

So we beat 5 of the Top 10, and had a 6-1 record against them.

It's possible I'm wrong and I can't find a post-tournament one; I wouldn't be surprised to see Ohio State and Gonzaga (2 more wins) hopped in there.

 

[gsmooth]

Is there a way to find this complete KenPom rankings of NCAA champions? Or does someone need a subscription or something?

 

[NatiHuskiFan]

They crushed teams all year but Fresno st, of all teams, did a decent job keeping up with them in a 93-82 loss. St. Johns lost by 4 as well and cincy was the only other team to beat them. I will always wonder about that cincy team as their star, Martin was injured. That was a final four team prior to injuries in my mind.

Hopefully I'm thinking of this correctly, but I think it was the next season Kenyon suffered that injury in the CUSA tournament against st Louis. I was ready to have my second favorite team give me back to back years rooting for a champ lol. That Melvin Levitt dunk though?!?!

 

[jimva]

Comma does nothing. Still just two.

Duke having better players necessarily means UConn has worse.
Duke having a worse coach necessarily means UConn has a better.

But what about option 3! We have better players and better coach? Read much?

 

[tentoes4rings]

It's on YouTube. @tcf15 has a link to it as well above.

I do have the old VHS somewhere but of course I was going to watch the TCF feed. Thanks for reminder though.

 

[tentoes4rings]

I can't find a post-tournament poll for the AP. The pre-tournament poll was:

1. Duke (W)
2. Michigan State (W)
3. UConn
4. Auburn
5. Maryland
6. Utah
7. Stanford (W)
8. Kentucky
9. St. John's (2-0)
10. Miami (1-1)

So we beat 5 of the Top 10, and had a 6-1 record against them.

It's possible I'm wrong and I can't find a post-tournament one; I wouldn't be surprised to see Ohio State and Gonzaga (2 more wins) hopped in there.

I might be misremembering, I could have sworn we had beaten the entire final top 10. Fortunately, I’m 100% certain we won it all.

 

[uconnfan68]

Watched it again, and didn’t almost pass out when we won. We didn’t even play especially well either. Lots of missed free throws and turnovers. Smothering D though.

 

[auror]

Is there a way to find this complete KenPom rankings of NCAA champions? Or does someone need a subscription or something?

You need a KenPom subscription to access everything.

You can see this past year for free on 2019 Pomeroy College Basketball Ratings

Full stats are available from 2002 on with a subscription. Also, the 'D1-Universe' page has the rankings of every team in the main categories from the year 1997-today without every single stat. Because it is very hard to find stats that account for varying paces of play, this time period is known as the Tempo-Free era.

What we do know is that '99 Duke is the most dominant team since '97. In most years, the champion does not eclipse 34 adjusted efficiency margin. 2015 Kentucky, the team that won it's first 38 games, is tied for the best of this millennium with a 37 adjEM. Wisconsin, who beat them, had an adhEM of 34, which is high even among recent champions. That was a great year in college basketball. National Champion 2001 Duke also achieved a 37 adjEM, featuring Battier, Boozer, and Jay Will. 1998 Duke AND North Carolina (Carter, Jamison, Haywood, etc.) both reached 35 adjEM.

The other recent teams to achieve at least 34 adjEM are:
2008 Kansas, who beat Memphis in the NC on that miracle 3 by Chalmers (and the Rose missed FTs).
2018 Villanova, who steamrolled their way to the title but lost 3 in 6 games in Big East play but were 33-1 otherwise.
2002 Duke, the Jay Williams led team who were ranked #1 in offense and defense in their year, but lost to an insanely underseeded Indiana team in the S16 by 1 (who eventually lost to Maryland in the final) and were up 6 with 2:41 to go in that game but choked it away with 3 mostly unforced turnovers in the final 3 minutes (and Indiana got a few favorable whistles and bounces)..
2000 national champions Michigan St, led by Mateen Cleaves and the Flntstones, who capped off their 3rd straight Final Four.
1997 Kentucky, attempting to repeat following '96's championship, was Pitino's last year coaching Kentucky and they lost in OT of the NC game.

1999 Duke reached an adjEM of 43. Yes, you read that correctly. They're the only team in the tempo-free era to reach above 37 and they hit 43 even with their loss to UConn. This is the reason why people consider them the greatest team of all time. Only 5 other teams even manged 35 adjEM in the last 24 years, and none higher than 37, but Duke in 1999 hit 43.

So if you don't consider them the best team of all time, it's pretty reasonable to conclude they are the best in the tempo-free era, even with losing the title game to Rip and co.

There's a pretty clear and obvious advantage towards pre-prep to pros NBA draft teams. 7 of the 11 teams that broke 33+ adjEM are from the period of 97-2002 and only 4 came between 2003 and 2019. Of course, I would love to see how 1999 Duke compares to the Tark UNLV teams, or Laettner Duke teams, or 1996 Kentucky, or the Wooden UCLA teams, but it's too hard to objectively compare between eras.

 

[Hans Sprungfeld]

'99 Duke was the most dominant team in their season of any team of the last 25 years.

That much is not debatable. The box scores exist. They demolished teams that year.

'99 UConn was one of the best defensive teams of all time, though. Irresistible force meets immovable object in a 1 game series. Best memory ever.

UConn beat every common opponent by a larger margin, and then beat Duke head-to-head, so yeah, Duke was better.

 

[Hans Sprungfeld]

'85 Bears.

How was the score of that Super Bowl so close?

 

[auror]

UConn beat every common opponent by a larger margin, and then beat Duke head-to-head, so yeah, Duke was better.

Duke played 4 more top 15 opponents than UConn did that year and had a scoring margin of +12 vs. +10 in those 11/7 games. But go ahead, go with the smaller sample size.

 

[uconnfan68]

Duke played 4 more top 15 opponents than UConn did that year and had a scoring margin of +12 vs. +10 in those 11/7 games. But go ahead, go with the smaller sample size.

Stick with the loser.

 

[Hans Sprungfeld]

I have a memory that I'm pretty sure is accurate. UConn and Duke played three teams in common that year and UConn won all three by a greater margin (I don't think any of the three were any good). That stat was consistently ignored before the game and has been consistently forgotten since then but it should hold some weight in the discussion of who was the better team.

Michigan State was pretty good. IIRC, UConn in one game beat them by a greater margin than Duke did in two games combined.

 

[Hans Sprungfeld]

Duke played 4 more top 15 opponents than UConn did that year and had a scoring margin of +12 vs. +10 in those 11/7 games. But go ahead, go with the smaller sample size.

I said Duke was better.
If anybody wants to make a t-shirt saying "Best team Ever," there's a place up in Onondaga County, NY that will do the job. Maybe they'll give an ACC courtesy discount.

 

[auror]

I said Duke was better.
If anybody wants to make a t-shirt saying "Best team Ever," there's a place up in Onondaga County, NY that will do the job. Maybe they'll give an ACC courtesy discount.

I've come to agree with @superjohn over the last few years that we won because Ricky Moore was phenomenal and shut down their primary guard creation. Langdon had a good game, but the rest of their guards were pretty bad in that game. Overall, our '99 team is tied for the best defensive team of the last 24 years. We had an awesome team. That doesn't mean our team was as good as '99 Duke's. There's a difference between having a favorable matchup or winning one game and a 12 adjEM differential. Vegas wasn't wrong with making '99 UConn 9.5+ point underdogs depending on where you got the action.

We just won the game. And that is one of the things that makes sports amazing. I don't have to conclude that UConn was the better team to celebrate that win for the last 20 years. 2 different things can be true at the same time: we won that game because we were the better team that night and '99 Duke was a ridiculously incredible team all season that is likely the best team of the the last 24 years. If their adjEM was 35 or 36, it would be fair to conclude otherwise, but 43 adjEM is insane and pretty much unassailable.

 

[TheChamps990411]

It’s a foolish argument. We were better and were it not for injuries, good chance we finish undefeated. That’s the big thing that separated us on paper, we had key injuries resulting in two losses. The media doesn’t realize that.

I didn't get it then when we were 10 point underdogs and I don't get it today why people still want to ask if that's the greatest team ever. Its not like we stumbled into the final 4 as a 5th seed with 10 losses that barely held a spot in the top 25 that season. We lost just two games due to as you mentioned a couple of injuries. We were #1 for a good part of the season and top 5 I believe all season. If Duke is in the discussion for best team of all time and we beat them and only had two losses then shouldn't we at the very least be in the discussion?!!!
Let me add I think the 04` team kicks the 99` Duke team tails any day of the week! Now that team once it got going was an absolute juggxrnaught that I put up there with some of the all time great teams. That frontline of Josh,Hilt,Charlie and Ok4 would've made Elton and Shane wet their pants.

 

[QuickDraw]

All of this is fun but what it all comes down to is they lost multiple games which in my opinion disqualifies them and all others with losses from consideration. In the scope of an individual season, all stats are relative to that season alone and have no true bearing on historical perception. Undefeated is undefeated, and only those teams without a loss can truly be considered the best of all time. Everything else is a fans wishful fantasy.

 

[tzznandrew]

But what about option 3! We have better players and better coach? Read much?

????
You presented two options which were actually one. (Duke had better players and a worse coach and we had worse players and a better coach.)

Then there was the "better players and better coach" option you offered, which makes a total of two. I was just messing with you because it was funny that you presented two options but said it was 3.

There were three options, based on your implied logic, though it's not what you typed:

1. Duke has better players and a worse coach.
2. UConn had better players and a worse coach.
3. UConn had better players and a better coach.

 

[HuskyHawk]

You need a KenPom subscription to access everything.

You can see this past year for free on 2019 Pomeroy College Basketball Ratings

Full stats are available from 2002 on with a subscription. Also, the 'D1-Universe' page has the rankings of every team in the main categories from the year 1997-today without every single stat. Because it is very hard to find stats that account for varying paces of play, this time period is known as the Tempo-Free era.

What we do know is that '99 Duke is the most dominant team since '97. In most years, the champion does not eclipse 34 adjusted efficiency margin. 2015 Kentucky, the team that won it's first 38 games, is tied for the best of this millennium with a 37 adjEM. Wisconsin, who beat them, had an adhEM of 34, which is high even among recent champions. That was a great year in college basketball. National Champion 2001 Duke also achieved a 37 adjEM, featuring Battier, Boozer, and Jay Will. 1998 Duke AND North Carolina (Carter, Jamison, Haywood, etc.) both reached 35 adjEM.

The other recent teams to achieve at least 34 adjEM are:
2008 Kansas, who beat Memphis in the NC on that miracle 3 by Chalmers (and the Rose missed FTs).
2018 Villanova, who steamrolled their way to the title but lost 3 in 6 games in Big East play but were 33-1 otherwise.
2002 Duke, the Jay Williams led team who were ranked #1 in offense and defense in their year, but lost to an insanely underseeded Indiana team in the S16 by 1 (who eventually lost to Maryland in the final) and were up 6 with 2:41 to go in that game but choked it away with 3 mostly unforced turnovers in the final 3 minutes (and Indiana got a few favorable whistles and bounces)..
2000 national champions Michigan St, led by Mateen Cleaves and the Flntstones, who capped off their 3rd straight Final Four.
1997 Kentucky, attempting to repeat following '96's championship, was Pitino's last year coaching Kentucky and they lost in OT of the NC game.

1999 Duke reached an adjEM of 43. Yes, you read that correctly. They're the only team in the tempo-free era to reach above 37 and they hit 43 even with their loss to UConn. This is the reason why people consider them the greatest team of all time. Only 5 other teams even manged 35 adjEM in the last 24 years, and none higher than 37, but Duke in 1999 hit 43.

So if you don't consider them the best team of all time, it's pretty reasonable to conclude they are the best in the tempo-free era, even with losing the title game to Rip and co.

There's a pretty clear and obvious advantage towards pre-prep to pros NBA draft teams. 7 of the 11 teams that broke 33+ adjEM are from the period of 97-2002 and only 4 came between 2003 and 2019. Of course, I would love to see how 1999 Duke compares to the Tark UNLV teams, or Laettner Duke teams, or 1996 Kentucky, or the Wooden UCLA teams, but it's too hard to objectively compare between eras.

Those KenPom numbers aren’t what determines anything. They are a predictive measure that he adjusts after they fail or succeed at predicting. In this case they were obviously wrong. And you can’t compare numbers one season to the next. It’s meaningless.

My memory of 1999 was that there were two teams at #1 all year, Duke or UConn. MSU was a clear #3 and everybody else was meh. The level of talent that year wasn’t high. So a very good Duke team looked better by those metrics than it was. Plenty of other teams in that era would have beaten them. And UConn was the better team in 1999, clearly. So that reveals what? It reveals that KenPom adjEM isn’t a stat that tells you who the best teams are. It almost never is. It’s flawed.

 

[Inyatkin]

We just won the game. And that is one of the things that makes sports amazing. I don't have to conclude that UConn was the better team to celebrate that win for the last 20 years. 2 different things can be true at the same time: we won that game because we were the better team that night and '99 Duke was a ridiculously incredible team all season that is likely the best team of the the last 24 years. If their adjEM was 35 or 36, it would be fair to conclude otherwise, but 43 adjEM is insane and pretty much unassailable.

I almost hate when the '99 title game comes up on this board, even though it was my favorite memory as a sports fan. It inspires so many people to imply that Duke wasn't that good, as if the rest of the world was making things up.
They were great. We were great, too, but if we played 10 times we probably don't win more than a handful of times because you can't expect us to shoot 53 percent as a team while holding Duke to 41 percent and win by three points. That 53 percent takes into account a just-OK 10-22 from Rip and 5-12 from El-Amin, which shows how far out of character everyone else was -- 6-10 from Ricky, 3-4 from Mouring, 2-2 from Wane, etc.
None of which matters in the slightest. They don't play a series, they play a game, and we won, and it was the best thing ever and I don't get why people try to minimize it by saying Duke was overrated.

 

[auror]

My memory of 1999 was that there were two teams at #1 all year, Duke or UConn. MSU was a clear #3 and everybody else was meh. The level of talent that year wasn’t high. So a very good Duke team looked better by those metrics than it was. Plenty of other teams in that era would have beaten them. And UConn was the better team in 1999, clearly.

A 3 point difference in a 1 game series that Duke led for much of makes it "clear" that UConn was the better team? On that night after the 40th minute, sure.

So that reveals what? It reveals that KenPom adjEM isn’t a stat that tells you who the best teams are. It almost never is. It’s flawed.

You're actually making my point. 1 game trials don't determine who the best teams are. They never truly have. They crown a champion, not the best team. Teams that are favored by 6 points by Vegas win only ~80% of the time. Teams that are 9.5 point favorites still lose 1 out of 6 games. Those outcomes don't always make the spreads or AdjEm or whatever wrong and they don't mean that the best team was actually worse. They happen. And we watch sports for those 1 out of 6. The unpredictability is one of the things that makes sports great.

AdjEM isn't perfect. It's not exact, because even 30-40 game trials aren't enough data. In addition, team quality isn't static (just ask 2011 UConn). But it's a hell of a lot more representative than 1 or even a handful of game results, and proven much more accurate than the polls.

There is likely a margin of error between close adjEMs. Is a team with 37 definitively better than with 34? Usually, but probably not always. But what my argument comes down to is that the gulf between 37, let alone 34, and 43 adjEM is double (or triple) that. It's a legitimate separation beyond margin of error or inaccuracy after that many games.

 

[CL82]

Maybe we all can just agree that Duke was the best team to lose in the national championship game?

 

[Husky25]

I almost hate when the '99 title game comes up on this board, even though it was my favorite memory as a sports fan. It inspires so many people to imply that Duke wasn't that good, as if the rest of the world was making things up.
They were great. We were great, too, but if we played 10 times we probably don't win more than a handful of times because you can't expect us to shoot 53 percent as a team while holding Duke to 41 percent and win by three points. That 53 percent takes into account a just-OK 10-22 from Rip and 5-12 from El-Amin, which shows how far out of character everyone else was -- 6-10 from Ricky, 3-4 from Mouring, 2-2 from Wane, etc.
None of which matters in the slightest. They don't play a series, they play a game, and we won, and it was the best thing ever and I don't get why people try to minimize it by saying Duke was overrated.

Duke was a great team. Not the greatest of all time and probably not the greatest to ever not win the Tournament, but they are in the conversation. They were overrated in that the two best teams in the country all season long met in the championship game and anyone who took Duke as a 9.5 point favorite didn't factor in the circumstances or experience.

BTW, 10/22 = 45.45%. Hamilton, a jump shooter, shot 44.3% for the season. El-Amin was precisely on his season average (4.8FGs/11.7FGA per game). Neither championship game performance was outside anyone's margin for error.

Moore's offensive performance on the other hand, was. He shot 42% during the season, averaging less than 5 FGA/G. Also UConn's FT shooting was comparatively atrocious. They shoot 73% for the year and in the mid 50s in the NC.

Moore's defense was at its typical stellar level, as was the combined defense of the front court (stellar, if not typical). UConn held Brand to only 8 shots, and Freeman and Voskuhl had 5 blocks between them. Oh, and before anyone mentions that 74 points doe not necessarily reflect great defense, Duke averaged 92 points that year. UConn was right on their average.