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allenmurray
02-16-2009, 10:09 AM
Interesting numbers.

In the past 40 years only 5 private universities have won NCAA Division I Basketball championships. They are, by size of undergraduate enrollment, from biggest to smallest

Syracuse - 2003 (13,200)
Marquette - 1977 (7,950)
Georgetown - 1984 (6,850)
Villanova - 1985 (6,330)
Duke - 1991, 1992, 2001 (6,240)

rthomas
02-16-2009, 10:17 AM
Interesting numbers.

In the past 40 years only 5 private universities have won NCAA Division I Basketball championships. They are, by size of undergraduate enrollment, from biggest to smallest

Syracuse - 2003 (13,200)
Marquette - 1977 (7,950)
Georgetown - 1984 (6,850)
Villanova - 1985 (6,330)
Duke - 1991, 1992, 2001 (6,240)


Just out of curiosity - what ranking using size of university endowment?

allenmurray
02-16-2009, 10:25 AM
Just out of curiosity - what ranking using size of university endowment?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._colleges_and_universities_by_endowmen t

chrisM
02-18-2009, 12:54 AM
Interesting numbers.

In the past 40 years only 5 private universities have won NCAA Division I Basketball championships. They are, by size of undergraduate enrollment, from biggest to smallest

Syracuse - 2003 (13,200)
Marquette - 1977 (7,950)
Georgetown - 1984 (6,850)
Villanova - 1985 (6,330)
Duke - 1991, 1992, 2001 (6,240)

This is using 2008-9 Academic year enrollment size, no? Doesn't that invalidate this data, given that I'm sure Marquette, for one, was much smaller 30 years ago, and the bottom three are so close that one class that had an unusually high transfer rate would change the order between them (Less than 100 transfers would push Villanova below Duke)? If you were to go back and look at this data based on the size of the school in the year it won a championship, that might be a straighter comparison.

Yes, I am sweating blood over data analysis for a report right now, why did you ask?

Chris

Capn Poptart
02-18-2009, 08:12 AM
People always assume, because of its international profile, that Duke is a much larger school. I regularly get people who are surprised that its private (I'm not sure why).

I also hear, in broadcasting in particular, about Duke going up against the "small schools." In reality, most colleges on our schedule have larger undergraduate populations. I remember hearing it in reference to our game against VCU, aka "the giant killer" (VCU has 22,159 undergraduates). I assume announcers and talk-radio guys mean the smaller, or less visible programs, but it is confusing to some people.

Of the 25 teams we play against this year in the regular season, I believe 18 have larger undergraduate populations.

Of course, Duke has other advantages and undergraduate population doesn't necessarily translate into athletic dominance, but the perceptions are interesting.

allenmurray
02-18-2009, 09:31 AM
This is using 2008-9 Academic year enrollment size, no? Doesn't that invalidate this data, given that I'm sure Marquette, for one, was much smaller 30 years ago, and the bottom three are so close that one class that had an unusually high transfer rate would change the order between them (Less than 100 transfers would push Villanova below Duke)? If you were to go back and look at this data based on the size of the school in the year it won a championship, that might be a straighter comparison.

Yes, I am sweating blood over data analysis for a report right now, why did you ask?

Chris

I actually needed most of those numbers for something else that was actually work related (and the years I needed were recent years). Because I had the numbers I went ahead and made the post. Your point is valid - if you are going to compare sizes it would need to be sizes of the schools at the time they won the championship. My guess is that it is meaningless data anyway (it might be mre meanigful in football where budget requirements are so much greater) - I just thought it was interesting.

flyingdutchdevil
02-18-2009, 09:42 AM
People always assume, because of its international profile, that Duke is a much larger school. I regularly get people who are surprised that its private (I'm not sure why).

I also hear, in broadcasting in particular, about Duke going up against the "small schools." In reality, most colleges on our schedule have larger undergraduate populations. I remember hearing it in reference to our game against VCU, aka "the giant killer" (VCU has 22,159 undergraduates). I assume announcers and talk-radio guys mean the smaller, or less visible programs, but it is confusing to some people.

Of the 25 teams we play against this year in the regular season, I believe 18 have larger undergraduate populations.

Of course, Duke has other advantages and undergraduate population doesn't necessarily translate into athletic dominance, but the perceptions are interesting.

Agree with your analysis on the irony that commentators frequently use the phrase "giant killers" in the wrong way.

However, as an international student who only went to Duke for undergrad and lived overseas for the rest of my life, I can unfortunately say that Duke has no-to-little reputation outside of North America. Everyone has heard of Gtown (ranked in the 20s) but no one has heard of Duke (top 10). It's the only top 20 school that Europeans and Asians are familiar with.

CDu
02-18-2009, 09:44 AM
This is using 2008-9 Academic year enrollment size, no? Doesn't that invalidate this data, given that I'm sure Marquette, for one, was much smaller 30 years ago, and the bottom three are so close that one class that had an unusually high transfer rate would change the order between them (Less than 100 transfers would push Villanova below Duke)? If you were to go back and look at this data based on the size of the school in the year it won a championship, that might be a straighter comparison.

Yes, I am sweating blood over data analysis for a report right now, why did you ask?

Chris

But wouldn't the same argument hold for Duke (and for post-secondary schools everywhere)? While it's certainly no guarantee that the enrollment increases have remained consistent across these universities, that's probably a more appropriate assumption than comparing 2001 Duke enrollment to 1977 Marquette enrollment (for example).

CDu
02-18-2009, 09:47 AM
I actually needed most of those numbers for something else that was actually work related (and the years I needed were recent years). Because I had the numbers I went ahead and made the post. Your point is valid - if you are going to compare sizes it would need to be sizes of the schools at the time they won the championship. My guess is that it is meaningless data anyway (it might be mre meanigful in football where budget requirements are so much greater) - I just thought it was interesting.

No, I think your approach was more appropriate. Comparing Duke's 2001 enrollment to Marquette's 1977 enrollment is comparing apples to oranges. There were a lot more post-secondary students in 2001 than in 1977 nationwide, and that is almost certainly reflected as well in the enrollments at Duke and Marquette to some degree.

The most appropriate (though most time-consuming) would be to measure the enrollment of the school in the year of their title relative to the average university enrollment nationwide in that same year. But, that's a lot more work than it's worth, unless you just happen to have that data lying around.

throatybeard
02-18-2009, 09:59 AM
Agree with your analysis on the irony that commentators frequently use the phrase "giant killers" in the wrong way.

However, as an international student who only went to Duke for undergrad and lived overseas for the rest of my life, I can unfortunately say that Duke has no-to-little reputation outside of North America. Everyone has heard of Gtown (ranked in the 20s) but no one has heard of Duke (top 10). It's the only top 20 school that Europeans and Asians are familiar with.

I hope this is changing. I remember some high-level administrator saying disparagingly of our international reputation in the 1990s, "we haven't one."

My ex-gf was French, with an American mother, and she went to the American Section of the Lycee International in Paris. Her college counselor tried to talk her out of going to Duke because "it's a party school."

Bluedog
02-18-2009, 10:56 AM
Agree with your analysis on the irony that commentators frequently use the phrase "giant killers" in the wrong way.

However, as an international student who only went to Duke for undergrad and lived overseas for the rest of my life, I can unfortunately say that Duke has no-to-little reputation outside of North America. Everyone has heard of Gtown (ranked in the 20s) but no one has heard of Duke (top 10). It's the only top 20 school that Europeans and Asians are familiar with.

Really? I didn't get that impression when I studied in London. Although you have lived outside the US for a much longer period than I, so you probably have more evidence to point to. Studying at one of the University of London schools, all my fellow students knew about Duke. I was actually surprised and said "You've heard of Duke?" They were like "Of course, it's one of the best schools in the world." Similarly, I have a friend at Barclay's in London who claims that Duke is seen as a great institution in the banking sector, another friend in Malaysia in consulting who says the same thing, and a third in Hong Kong who says everybody knows Duke, although its prestige trails many similarly-ranked schools in the US.

Perhaps it's dependent on the specific industry/region of the world. Certainly Georgetown is much more well-known than Duke in public policy and international relations, for example. Duke also has a lot of ground to make up as it has a more recent ascent to one of the most prestigious schools in the country.

Duke trails HYPSM (harvard, yale, princeton, stanford, MIT), Berkeley, and a few others in international reputation for sure, but I think it's making ground fast. The Times Higher Education Supplement ranking Duke in the top 13 in the world for 4 years in a row certainly helps it's reputation in the UK, for example. In Asia, Duke trails many California schools (Berkeley, Stanford, Cal Tech) as well as the Ivy League in reputation by quite a bit, but people still know Duke's existence by and large (according to my friend from Hong Kong).

Duke, Stanford, Notre Dame, and possibly Wake seem to be the best four private schools in college athletics overall historically...