The "Where does Villanova rank" thread got me thinking. Since the NCAA tourney began in 1939, we have 80 champions. However, we have different eras of basketball. I'd like to break the game into the following 3 eras:

1979 - present (modern):

• 40 years is a nice round number
• Magic vs Larry
• UCLA dynasty ended (parity)
• Televised tournament
• Tourney expanded to 40 teams (48 in 1980)

1959 - 1978

• NCAA the dominant tournament (although McGuire turned it down in 1970)
• Great teams and players, but no at-large bids until 1975

1939 - 1958

• NIT arguably better tournament many years
• smaller field

I propose the following scoring system:

1979 - present:

• 1 point for tourney appearance
• 1 point for sweet 16
• 5 points for final 4
• 10 points for championship
• points for season are cumulative (e.g. 17 points for winning it all)

1959 - '78:

• 1 point for tourney appearance
• 2 points for a Final 4
• 5 points for championship
• points cumulative for season (e.g. 8 points for winning it all)

1939 - '58

• 1 point for either NIT or NCAA appearance (2 points if played both)
• 3 points for NIT or NCAA championship (6 points if won both)
• points cumulative

I propose that for this exercise, vacated appearances and titles still count.

I don't have time to do this right now - any takers? I will edit the post if somebody thinks the scoring system should be tweaked significantly).

Teams probably shouldn't get a point for a Sweet 16 until 1985. Final Four teams from 1959-1979 should probably get a point or two. ESPN did something similar awhile back, cool idea.

It's an interesting proposition. It would thrill my soul if it included NCAA actions. I wouldn't deduct points. Just keep them in context.

Does it even make sense to try to rank programs outside of whatever we define as the modern era? It seems the game as well as the level of competition has changed so much that it really doesn't make sense to weight things that happened in the 40s and 50s.

How do programs rank just in the past 30 years? That seems more of a meaningful ranking to me.

The last 10 years would probably be more "meaningful" than even the last 30 years. It's all relative.

Using your point system (except counting S16 in '85);

North Carolina - 189 pts
Kentucky - 177 pts
Duke - 176 pts
Kansas - 137 pts
UCLA - 126 pts
Louisville - 125 pts
Connecticut - 112 pts
Michigan State - 107 pts
Indiana - 100 pts
Villanova - 95 pts

And for ****s and giggles

A&M - 18 pts (counted the '80 Sweet16, they won twice)
Tech - 18 pts
Texas - 47 pts
Baylor - 15 pts (yet they have two FF and a few E8)

Maybe give 2pts for a final four prior to 1979? Also, UK misses out on a few points because of the year cutoffs. They won it all in '58 and '78.

_lefraud_ said:

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Using your point system (except counting S16 in '85);

North Carolina - 189 pts
Kentucky - 177 pts
Duke - 176 pts
Kansas - 137 pts
UCLA - 126 pts
Louisville - 125 pts
Connecticut - 112 pts
Michigan State - 107 pts
Indiana - 100 pts
Villanova - 95 pts

And for ****s and giggles

A&M - 18 pts (counted the '80 Sweet16, they won twice)
Tech - 18 pts
Texas - 47 pts
Baylor - 15 pts (yet they have two FF and a few E8)

Maybe give 2pts for a final four prior to 1979? Also, UK misses out on a few points because of the year cutoffs. They won it all in '58 and '78.

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Thanks! I agree. 2 points for a final 4 from 1959 - 1978. That would give Kentucky 8 points for 1978, and Michigan State 17 points for 1979. Not exactly fair, but not totally unfair either. 8 points for each of Wooden's titles is reasonable, given the era. Add those 20 points to UCLA, and they are in no danger of losing blue blood status.

Do you have a larger list? Of course this isn't definitive, but it helps point out some surprises. For example, it's obvious that Indiana is 2nd tier. It took 20 years, but UNC, Kentucky, Duke, and Kansas have left them behind. Meanwhile, UConn, Louisville, Michigan State, and Villanova are knocking on the door.

Loyola's 7 points this year are compared to our 4 points in the last 3 seasons combined...seems about right... I'd much rather make a Final 4 than 2 Sweet 16's.

A graph depicting the accumulation of points over time for the all the top teams would be interesting.

I have edited the original post to award 2 points for each Final 4 in the 1959 - '78 era.

Perhaps lefraud can update the list.

I think you should only count beginning in 1985 for these purposes, or as someone else suggested, even the last 10 years

The 70s just seem so long ago and the environment has changed so much since then

Also surprised Arizona is not represented

And Kansas is a huge underachiever

No Arizona eh?

general ulysses said:

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I think you should only count beginning in 1985 for these purposes, or as someone else suggested, even the last 10 years

The 70s just seem so long ago and the environment has changed so much since then

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You're missing the point here. Start another thread if your history begins after Florida's back to back titles.

I was at Denton with my dad in 1980. Dean Smith was already a legend, and UNC was a blue blood even though Smith didn't win a title for 3 more years. Then there were Wooden, Iba, McGuire, Rupp, Knight, Haskins...it makes no sense to pretend they didn't exist.

Updates:

North Carolina - 199
Duke -184
Kentucky - 183
UCLA - 154
Kansas - 141
Louisville - 135
Connecticut - 113
Michigan State - 107
Indiana - 104
Villanova - 98
Syracuse - 89
Arizona - 83
Michigan - 78
Florida - 77
Georgetown - 69
Ohio State - 68
Cincinnati - 65
Arkansas - 65
Maryland - 56
N.C. State - 55
UNLV - 53
Marquette - 53

I'll try and do a graph tomorrow.

EDIT: not sure how I could forget about Florida. All of their "points" have come since 1987, which has to be a top 5 program for the past 30 years.

A few of these were good mostly because of lifetime epic coaches. We let ours (BCG) go because Bill Byrne had an ego that made him think he could just replace him.

We know nothing of what would've happened. What we do know is of those teams kept their coaches and we didn't. Chnxes are BCG would've failed but he was the closest thing we had to a program changer and we just offered 1.6 mil or whatever bull**** we offered.

Well done. Not quite as interesting as I thought it would be though.

It looks like Duke and UNC have had an equal amount of success over the past 30 years. UNC just had a head start in the 70s.

Cool plot. It appears to be plotted in 10 year increments. The point over 1970s, for example, really represents the total in 1979. In other words, the slope from 1960s to 1970s really shows how well the program did from 1970 - 1979. This is why, for example, UCLA has a nice slope from 1980s to 2000s. That's actually a result of their title in 1995 and the 3 consecutive final 4's under Howland in the 2000s. Although they haven't been on the same trajectory as UNC, Duke, or Kentucky, this will be the first decade they've ever ended out of the lead.

This seems to confirm what we knew - blue blood status can neither be quickly gained nor lost. It's obvious that IU no longer has it. Again, this confirms what we already knew - they haven't been a top 3 program in their own conference for the past 20 years.

94chem said:

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general ulysses said:

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I think you should only count beginning in 1985 for these purposes, or as someone else suggested, even the last 10 years

The 70s just seem so long ago and the environment has changed so much since then

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You're missing the point here. Start another thread if your history begins after Florida's back to back titles.

I was at Denton with my dad in 1980. Dean Smith was already a legend, and UNC was a blue blood even though Smith didn't win a title for 3 more years. Then there were Wooden, Iba, McGuire, Rupp, Knight, Haskins...it makes no sense to pretend they didn't exist.

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My point is that each time the tournament format changes it becomes harder. In other words the larger the tournament the harder it is to win it.

The 64 team tournament format established in 1985 is the most difficult to navigate and win.

More difficult than the 68 team field?

_lefraud_ said:

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More difficult than the 68 team field?

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Lol you got me

Method Man said:

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We know nothing of what would've happened. What we do know is of those teams kept their coaches and we didn't. Chnxes are BCG would've failed but he was the closest thing we had to a program changer and we just offered 1.6 mil or whatever bull**** we offered.

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False. But making stuff up on this board is what you do, so no surprise.

I too have an advanced proprietary algorithm that says UNC, UK, KU, UCLA and Duke are the best programs in college basketball. I'd post this formula, but it's too complicated for you feeble-minded simpletons.

An interesting exercise. I don't know that I agree with the points system being weighted more heavily towards the modern era. It is certainly harder to win the modern NCAA 68 team tournament than it was the pre-80's tournament. However, prior to the mid-70's you didn't get to play in the NCAA tournament unless you were the champion of your conference so you might argue that it was harder to make the "old" tournament but easier to win the championship if you did make it. You could be a good team in the PAC in the 60's/70's but you were never going to play in the tournament because of Sam Gilbert's UCLA Bruins

Even after the mid-70's for a while only the top two teams from a conference got into the tournement

So you could argue 2-3 points point for making the old tournament but the 16's and FF's are not as valued (2-3 points). I doubt it really makes any different in the identified top programs over time.

_lefraud_ said:

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North Carolina - 199
Duke -184
Kentucky - 183
UCLA - 154
Kansas - 141
Louisville - 135
Connecticut - 113
*Michigan State - 107
*Indiana - 104
Villanova - 98
Syracuse - 89
Arizona - 83
Michigan - 78
Florida - 77
Georgetown - 69
Ohio State - 68
Cincinnati - 65
Arkansas - 65
Maryland - 56
N.C. State - 55
UNLV - 53
Marquette - 53

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This seems to confirm what we knew - blue blood status can neither be quickly gained nor lost.

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I somewhat agree but I think there is some difference between "new" money and "old" money. Consider the difference between the coaches and the programs in the list above. I would argue the teams in bold have had more than 1 "major" coach over the time period (and UNC, UK, and KU have each had at least 3). Taking out "U"L (who is about the roam the wilderness for a while) there is a pretty high probability that UNC, UK, and KU are still going to be good over the next 20 years. Even though they might get stuck with a BCG or Matt Doughty for a time history has shown they'll over come for a number of reasons.

IU should have been that way but they allowed Knight to stay too long (and the national treasure Tom Crean) and have been dead since the early 90's. Maybe they can be resurrected?

With what we know right now do you think UCONN will be good in 15 years?

The team with asterisks have had multiple HOF coaches (going by my memory) but I don't think they are in the same league as the teams in bold......but they may be more stable than some of the others

The interesting name at the top of that list is Duke. Duke didn't become DUKE until Coach Krczechexterzeeyf arrived. What happens when he retires? Do they have the "infrastructure" to continue or will they become UCLA?

bobinator said:

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I too have an advanced proprietary algorithm that says UNC, UK, KU, UCLA and Duke are the best programs in college basketball. I'd post this formula, but it's too complicated for you feeble-minded simpletons.

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Haha. Of course you're right. In addition to what I posted earlier, it is interesting to see a program like IU plotted against the blue bloods. You can see when they went to the 2nd tier. You could also plot Villanova or UConn to see how fast they are approaching Tier 1 or Tier 2 status.

The blue blood programs should reasonably be picking up 20 - 25 points every 10 years (e.g. 2 final 4's, 5 sweet 16's, and 8 tourney appearances = 23). UNC, Duke, Kentucky, Louisville, UConn, and Villanova have won the last 10 titles, so the top programs aren't slowing down. This means that Kansas could fall off in another 10 years, and either they or UCLA could become the next IU.

Wildcat makes a good point about the coaches. Even Joe Hall, Tubby, Pitino, and Cal all had nice runs at Kentucky, but weren't on the level of Rupp. What happens next at Duke is a great question. 15 years ago I would have said they'd take a big step back. Now I think they'll be okay, even if they hire one of his assistant flunkies for a few years until they get it right. I will say that Eddie Sutton was a bigger disaster than Gillispie at KY.

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I don't know that I agree with the points system being weighted more heavily towards the modern era.

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Some posters don't think history should count at all. I think it's fairly balanced. In fact, bobinator's sarcastic post actually validates the methodology. If the algorithm DIDN'T spit out those teams, we all know it's a bad formula. The fact that it spits out a trustworthy list of bluebloods implies that the rankings for the other schools is reasonable as well.

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This means that Kansas could fall off in another 10 years, and either they or UCLA could become the next IU.

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I think Kansas biggest challenge is going to be conference revenue. When the big dumpster fire finally implodes who will pick them up? Their market brings no TV sets and they could be in real trouble.

Something tells me Kansas basketball will be okay.

Sorry but if BCG couldn't survive 2 years in Lexington, under what scenario does he make us a world beater if we'd paid to keep him?

mosesrab90 said:

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Sorry but if BCG couldn't survive 2 years in Lexington, under what scenario does he make us a world beater if we'd paid to keep him?

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Maybe he was better suited to our job than Kentucky's?

I sort of disagree with a lot of the BCG fan fiction on here, but I think that part is fairly straightforward.