What is the definition of an "elite" basketball program?

[DavidinNaples]

If a team wins a National Championship, is that basketball program now "elite"? For example, Texas A&M won the 2011 N.C. in their only Final Four appearance ever. Are they "elite"? What about a team that appeared in five straight Final Fours, but never won the N.C.? LSU was a member of the Final Four five times from 2004-2008, but lost in the semi final game every year. Are they an "elite" program?

And finally, is there a time limit on teams that used to be great or "elite" but now can't even crack the Final Four? Louisiana Tech appeared in 10 Final Fours and won 2 National Championships, but not since 1999. Can we say they "used to be elite"?

Here's a list of the National Champions from 2000-2013, along with other Final Four teams.

2000 UConn beat Tenn. (Rutgers & Penn State)
2001 Notre Dame beat Purdue (UConn & S.W. Missouri State)
2002 UConn beat Oklahoma (Tenn. & Duke)
2003 UConn beat Tenn. (Texas & Duke)
2004 UConn beat Tenn. (Minn. & LSU)
2005 Baylor beat Michigan St. (Tenn. & LSU)
2006 Maryland beat Duke (N. Carolina & LSU)
2007 Tenn. beat Rutgers (N. Carolina & LSU)
2008 Tenn. beat Stanford (UConn & LSU)
2009 UConn beat Louisville (Stanford & Oklahoma)
2010 UConn beat Stanford (Baylor & Oklahoma)
2011 Texas A&M beat N. Dame (UConn & Stanford)
2012 Baylor beat N. Dame (UConn & Stanford)
2013 UConn beat Louisville (Notre Dame & Cal.)

If we make the cut-off that a team has to have been in the Final Four, at least three times, since 2000, then the "elite" teams are as follows: (NC's are in parenthesis) UConn (7), Baylor (2), Tenn. (2), Notre Dame (1), Stanford, Oklahoma, Duke, and LSU. Anyone got a better formula?

P.S. Sorry to turn the conversation away from more important topics like "bunny ears" in photos.

 

[DriveLH]

UConn made 11 FF's with 7 NC's. I guess they're elite.

 

[doggydaddy]

A team that has had excellent recruiting and consistent elite eight or better tourney performance for the last 10 years.

 

[meyers7]

Definition? Simple

UCONN.

 

[Buzzyboy]

A team that has had excellent recruiting and consistent elite eight or better tourney performance for the last 10 years.

I think an elite program would have had to have at least one final four, numerous elite eight finishes and continually a top ten program over the last ten years to be elite. I don't consider North Carolina or Maryland elite. If you've had multiple final fours that can compensate for less amount of elite eights to an extent. I think someone should have a formula based on national championships being a certain amount of points, final fours a certain amount, elite eight likewise and top tens a lesser amount of points. Tally them up and go from there.

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

Folks have done the talleying. Interesting results.

I consider Tennessee and UConn the two "elite" programs. LaTech was elite, but time has passed them by.

My definition of an elite program is dominance over a period of time. Teams that have approached the status include Stanford.

Other teams are just "hot" for awhile.

 

[jplotinus]

Elite status, even when defined, is still largely ephemeral. This likely applies to us as well. Mean reversion is pretty real. Elite status comes and goes. Ucla (men's) had a 12 season dynasty that not even UCONN (women) has equalled. Then, after Wooden retired, ucla reverted to mean.

It appears the UCONN dynasty is secure for the foreseeable future. I'm hoping we exceed the ucla dynasty in terms of championships, as we have done in terms of win streak. We can regress later

 

[dtbtbtb]

Elite = UConn and everyone else are imposters
In seriousness, Elite for me is a team that over extended period of time is top 10 or so team. It's clearly a status that teams can lose like for example RU who used to be an elite program and fell off the map in the last few seasons.

 

[msf22b]

Elite programs have a lot to do with Elite coaches (who also come and go, lose it, retire and sometimes even die).

 

[Icebear]

UCONN is not an elite program. It is a dynasty, so proclaimed the President of the United States.

 

[Bestiarius]

I’ll start it off with a suggestion for determining the elite programs.

No method is perfect, but I think a fair way to determine the elite schools is to assign points for performance in the NCAA tournament. To be an elite program, a team needs to be superior over a long period of time. I suggest a rolling period of 16 years. After each tournament, the oldest year’s scores would be eliminated and the current scores would be added.

The loser of each round for each of the 16 years would acquire the following number of points:
1st Round 1 point
2nd Round 3 points
3rd Round 6 points (Sweet 16)
Quarter Finals 12 points (Elite 8)
Semi Finals 24 points (Final 4)
Championship 48 points
Winner (NC) 64 points

The question of how many points would be necessary to qualify as an elite team is open to discussion. One could say that any team averaging 1 point per year would be elite. That would mean a team has made the tourney consistently, or perhaps not so often, but went far when they did make it.

Anyone have a suggestion for an easy way to tabulate these statistics? Comments?

 

[alexrgct]

I’ll start it off with a suggestion for determining the elite programs.

No method is perfect, but I think a fair way to determine the elite schools is to assign points for performance in the NCAA tournament. To be an elite program, a team needs to be superior over a long period of time. I suggest a rolling period of 16 years. After each tournament, the oldest year’s scores would be eliminated and the current scores would be added.

The loser of each round for each of the 16 years would acquire the following number of points:
1st Round 1 point
2nd Round 3 points
3rd Round 6 points (Sweet 16)
Quarter Finals 12 points (Elite 8)
Semi Finals 24 points (Final 4)
Championship 48 points
Winner (NC) 64 points

The question of how many points would be necessary to qualify as an elite team is open to discussion. One could say that any team averaging 1 point per year would be elite. That would mean a team has made the tourney consistently, or perhaps not so often, but went far when they did make it.

Anyone have a suggestion for an easy way to tabulate these statistics? Comments?

I did it a different way:

• Being a top 4 seed gets you points, thereby rewarding regular season success.
• How far you advance in the tournament gets you points.
• Programs get five points for a #4, 10 for a #3, 20 for a #2, and 30 for a #1.
• Programs get five points for a S16 appearence, 15 for E8, 30 for F4, 40 for being national runners-up, and 70 for a national championship.

Based on this, here are the schools with at least `100 points since 2000. Not all of them are elite, contingent on when the points were tallied:
School Tally
Uconn 1025
Tennessee 740
Duke 545
Stanford 440
Baylor 385
Notre Dame 360
LSU 320
UNC 275
Maryland 250
Purdue 205
Rutgers 185
Georgia 165
Vanderbilt 155
Penn State 150
Penn State 150
A&M 135
Texas 125
Texas Tech 110
Ohio State 110
Ohio State 110
Louisville 105
Louisville 105

 

[RegisteredUconn]

Here is my method: Number of Games Played. It's about as simple as it gets to calculate and as powerful and objective a differentiator as you are likely to find anywhere. In fact it is so simple some might be tempted to reject it out of hand. It's power is inherent in the structure of the tournament itself: lose and you go home. Therefore, the best play the most games. You either performed or you didn't. No need to survey opinions about rankings, recruiting classes, or whether and by how much the value of an Elite Eight appearance exceeds that of a Sweet Sixteen.

The elite? Here are the Elite Eight over the period 2000-2013.

Rank/Games Played/Team
1) 80 Connecticut
2) 65 Tennessee
3) 54 Duke
4) 53 Stanford
5) 47 Notre Dame
6) 46 LSU
7) 42 Oklahoma
7) 42 Baylor



To complete a Top 15

9) 38 Purdue
10) 37 Georgia
11) 35 Vanderbilt
11) 35 North Carolina
13) 34 Rutgers
14) 31 Maryland
15) 25 Louisville


Edit: Forgot to mention the "Deemed" game to differentiate between the national champ and the runner up. Both play 6 games. Obviously there's a difference. Because the champion didn't lose, they would have played an additional game had play continued (which it didn't). The champion is therefore deemed to have played 7 games rather than 6.

 

[UcMiami]

I think it really is simple - 3 NCs within any rolling 1o year period for the last 20 years = Elite.
But seriously - Elite means different things to different people. The lowest bar I think would be:
1. Consistent NCAA appearance (missing one might be excused) and frequent say 3 yrs out of every 5 getting to Elite eight over a decade. These are the games that the best teams have to take seriously and where good recruits can have some expectation of making final fours.
Next would be:
2. Making every NCAA and making every sweet sixteen, with at least two final fours over 10 years or one NC.
Next:
3. Consistent elite eight, (3 out of 5) and multiple and or at least one NC over that last decade.
4. 4 or more in a decade or multiple NCs

And it has to be a continuous evaluation - you do not keep Elite status regardless of current performance - there are a number of teams that used to be good and that aren't any more.

The point system is interesting, but I think an Elite team gets zero points for losses in round 1 or 2 or even negative points - I would say 3rd round loss = 0, 4th rd loss = 3, 5th rd loss = 8 , and runner up gets 15, winner gets 25, And I would say round 1 loss = -5, round 2 loss = -3 and not making the field = -10.

 

[DavidinNaples]

alex...awesome work! Love the formula, points for regular season, seeding and tourny play...cool the way the top teams were the same w/ my simple formula and your more complex system! I think Oklahoma might have been missed...no big deal....good stuff!!

Best, Uc and Reg good work too....was writing while posts were going up....thanks...!!

 

[UcMiami]

On the any point system or really any evaluation system I think anything more than a rolling 10 years is too generous to teams that were good but haven't been for the last 5 years. I might be tempted to lower it to a rolling 8 years. And I do think penalty points for 'bad' years should be involved - no team should be considered elite unless they are consistently playing the second weekend of the NCAAs - one off year can be 'excuse' but two off years should only be allowed if the 'on' years were very good indeed! If you don't penalize the off years you end up with teams getting elite status when they only had a few good years.

 

[RegisteredUconn]

If we make the cut-off that a team has to have been in the Final Four, at least three times, since 2000, then the "elite" teams are as follows: (NC's are in parenthesis) UConn (7), Baylor (2), Tenn. (2), Notre Dame (1), Stanford, Oklahoma, Duke, and LSU. Anyone got a better formula?

Even taking Baylor's best years, i.e., beginning with their first national title in 2005 and continuing to 2013, I'd still have them ranked #4 at 36 games played, behind UConn at 47, Stanford at 40, and Tennessee at 39, and just 2 ahead of Duke in 5th place.

 

[RegisteredUconn]

On the any point system or really any evaluation system I think anything more than a rolling 10 years is too generous to teams that were good but haven't been for the last 5 years. I might be tempted to lower it to a rolling 8 years. And I do think penalty points for 'bad' years should be involved - no team should be considered elite unless they are consistently playing the second weekend of the NCAAs - one off year can be 'excuse' but two off years should only be allowed if the 'on' years were very good indeed! If you don't penalize the off years you end up with teams getting elite status when they only had a few good years.

Accounting for each team's performance via "games played" accomplishes the same objective as "penalty points" without the need for negative numbers and a "subjective" attempt to somehow equate a "poor" first round exit to an "OK" Sweet Sixteen appearance.

Games played is a simple, objective measure that takes into account everything a team does in the tournament. That means teams that don't make the field or are eliminated in the first round get lower scores than those who play into the later rounds. Awarding a score of zero to a team that doesn't make the tournament is no different than awarding them a negative five (or whatever), it simply assigns a different value to the starting point.

Very simple scale that can be accumulated easily over time.
0 -- Didn't make the tournament.
1 -- Exited in first round.
2 -- Exited in second round.
3 -- Exited in Sweet Sixteen.
4 -- Exited in Elite Eight.
5 -- Exited in Final Four.
6 -- National Runner-up.
7 -- National Champion.

 

[KnightBridgeAZ]

I seriously don't think that "elite program" can be as ephemeral as everyone wants to make it. I just don't think that teams can become elite / non-elite overnight. LSU had an awesome tourney run - had they kept it up, maybe elite would have been appropriate. They didn't - but they sure looked it at the time.

I think these formulas are great at defining the best teams in a given period, but I think very few fans of other programs would consider anyone but Tennessee and UConn - over the long run - as elite.

Someone above suggested that RU was elite at one time. Rubbish. We were for many years a very, very good program knocking on elite status. But we never got there.

 

[UcMiami]

Accounting for each team's performance via "games played" accomplishes the same objective as "penalty points" without the need for negative numbers and a "subjective" attempt to somehow equate a "poor" first round exit to an "OK" Sweet Sixteen appearance.

Games played is a simple, objective measure that takes into account everything a team does in the tournament. That means teams that don't make the field or are eliminated in the first round get lower scores than those who play into the later rounds. Awarding a score of zero to a team that doesn't make the tournament is no different than awarding them a negative five (or whatever), it simply assigns a different value to the starting point.

Very simple scale that can be accumulated easily over time.
0 -- Didn't make the tournament.
1 -- Exited in first round.
2 -- Exited in second round.
3 -- Exited in Sweet Sixteen.
4 -- Exited in Elite Eight.
5 -- Exited in Final Four.
6 -- National Runner-up.
7 -- National Champion.

I understand the idea - but a team that made one semi-final 5 elite eights 2 second round and 2 missed the tournament would have 30 points and I think they are not as good a team as one that made the sweet sixteen 10 times in ten years. One team had was good half the time and bad the rest of the time while the other was one of the top 9-16 teams in the country for all 10 years. If you don't subtract points for bad years, some extremely inconsistent teams may rise toward the top of your rankings.

 

[DaddyChoc]

elite is any "program" who has a coach that makes $700,000.00 or more per season

 

[triaddukefan]

elite is any "program" who has a coach that makes $700,000.00 or more per season

So South Carolina and LSU are elite ??????

 

[jplotinus]

elite is any "program" who has a coach that makes $700,000.00 or more per season

Ah, so, the issue of $$$. There's merit to that kind of analysis. Elite = those programs that spend >$__?___ on their women's bb program. Factors in addition to big bucks for coaches would include quality of facilities, quality of room&board, foreign junket, number of sneakers and practice outfits given out to players for free, recruitment budget, health and training staff, tutors, and the availability of stuff that girls like that is allowable under a generous interpretation of ncaa's dumb ass rules.

I/o/w, commitment to program as measured by what it costs is by no means a bad way to go about determining elite status.

W/L is arbitrary. It's only a game. There's really no significant difference between winning and losing in existential terms.

 

[triaddukefan]

And Texas and Ohio State.

Oops. Texas coach was fired, de-eliting the program when they hired the peon-wage Aston. Wake up and smell the elite, guys, you've got the money.

Ohio State coach was fired too, but they had the sense to hire McGuff, who makes enough for the program to stay elite.

I would guess that Maryland's coach makes more than 700K........ I assume McCallie is above that threshold as well.

 

[Bestiarius]

elite is any "program" who has a coach that makes $700,000.00 or more per season

That would leave Tennessee out.