50 best basketball programs of the past 50 years

[JasonEvans]

ESPN has done this before and now they are doing it again. They are counting down the top 50 college basketball programs of the past 50 years.

When they did it in 2008, Duke was #1. But that list was only comprised of 24 years worth of data. By expanding it to 50 years of data, I would imagine it would really help Kentucky, UNC, and especially UCLA -- perhaps enough to vault them past Duke into the top spot.

-Jason "we led UCLA by a huge 578-272 point margin in the last poll... will that be big enough to overcome UCLA's avalanche of National Titles from the 60s and 70s?" Evans

[MarkD83]

Since this poll will look back to 1962, UNC will not have the 1957 team (or the Helms championship ) count towards their ranking. For Duke this does count the final fours through the 1960s which means all significant championships would be in play. Duke may not drop as much as we think.

UK probaly will move to #1 from their 2008 position based on the championship this year. However, that is offset by Duke's championship in 2010.

[JasonEvans]

Since this poll will look back to 1962, UNC will not have the 1957 team (or the Helms championship ) count towards their ranking. For Duke this does count the final fours through the 1960s which means all significant championships would be in play. Duke may not drop as much as we think.

UK probaly will move to #1 from their 2008 position based on the championship this year. However, that is offset by Duke's championship in 2010.

Dude, UCLA is going to add 10 national titles to their total. 10!!!! They are also going to add a slew of conference championships, #1 rankings, and Final Fours in several years where they did not win the national title. I will be shocked if what Duke has done under K can offset the UCLA dominance in the 60s and 70s.

We are all playing for #2, in my opinion. Duke, Kentucky, and UNC will probably be pretty close for spots #2 - #4. Kansas should be #5 and then maybe Indiana. But I am just guessing at that point.

-Jason "you can thank Sam Gilbert for UCLA's dominance!" Evans

[MarkD83]

Oops!!

I was only thinking about the relative ranknings of Duke, UK and UNC.

[SCMatt33]

I think this will actually be pretty close. If you only count points from final four losses, title game losses, and titles, Duke is only behind by 75 points, 370-295. Keeping in mind that the PAC-12 did not permanently implement a tournament until 2002 (with another 4 in the late 80's), and the fact that the vast majority of UCLA's dominance was before seeding, I think that Duke (along with UNC and UK) will end up pretty close to UCLA. My gut says that UCLA still comes out on top, but it won't be a runaway.

EDIT: I assume they won't count 1980 for UCLA because it was vacated.

[SCMatt33]

Sorry for the double post, but ot was too late to edit. A little more thought is clearing this up even more. UNC is at 300 for FF or better and UK is at only 205. Duke is behind the other 3 by 7-10 regular season conference titles each. My gut now thinks that UNC has a decent shot to be ahead of UCLA, with Duke third and UK fourth, but it will come down to all of the little categories.

[patentgeek]

Dude, UCLA is going to add 10 national titles to their total. 10!!!! They are also going to add a slew of conference championships, #1 rankings, and Final Fours in several years where they did not win the national title. I will be shocked if what Duke has done under K can offset the UCLA dominance in the 60s and 70s.

We are all playing for #2, in my opinion. Duke, Kentucky, and UNC will probably be pretty close for spots #2 - #4. Kansas should be #5 and then maybe Indiana. But I am just guessing at that point.

-Jason "you can thank Sam Gilbert for UCLA's dominance!" Evans

I think you may be underestimating Indiana (maybe based on their lackluster recent play) - they did win three national titles during that period (76, 81, and 87) and make it to a few other FFs (at least 73, 92 and 02 - there may be others that I'm forgetting) - that's probably as good a body of work as Kansas has put together (two NCs and maybe 8-9 FFs). But I'm probably splitting hairs.

[johnb]

The ranking also includes a list of the top 5 players of the past 50 years along with 3 subs. Leaving aside your view as to the best 5 or 8 players, or who meant the most, or who you like the best, or who was the best among the 4 year players, anyone care to guess who they'll actually pick? I'll go with Laettner, Battier, Hill, Dawkins, Hurley with a side order of Redick, Ferry, and Brand, but I suppose that's not going out on a limb.

[luvdahops]

The ranking also includes a list of the top 5 players of the past 50 years along with 3 subs. Leaving aside your view as to the best 5 or 8 players, or who meant the most, or who you like the best, or who was the best among the 4 year players, anyone care to guess who they'll actually pick? I'll go with Laettner, Battier, Hill, Dawkins, Hurley with a side order of Redick, Ferry, and Brand, but I suppose that's not going out on a limb.

That's an excellent list. Only potential quibbles for me would be J-Will (over JJ, as more of combo/3rd guard) and maybe Art Heyman, who I think just skates in under the 50 year cutoff. Not sure who I'd have him replace, though.

[Olympic Fan]

The ranking also includes a list of the top 5 players of the past 50 years along with 3 subs. Leaving aside your view as to the best 5 or 8 players, or who meant the most, or who you like the best, or who was the best among the 4 year players, anyone care to guess who they'll actually pick? I'll go with Laettner, Battier, Hill, Dawkins, Hurley with a side order of Redick, Ferry, and Brand, but I suppose that's not going out on a limb.

Not a bad list, but there's got to be a place for somebody from the Bubas era ... Art Heyman, maybe? He was national player of the year in 1963, the first year of the survey.

[toooskies]

Regardless, the list is kind of a joke when Western Kentucky is rated 20 spots ahead of NC State. Apparently lots of low-major conference championships are worth more than national titles and respectable finishes in a storied basketball conference.

[TexHawk]

Dude, UCLA is going to add 10 national titles to their total. 10!!!! They are also going to add a slew of conference championships, #1 rankings, and Final Fours in several years where they did not win the national title. I will be shocked if what Duke has done under K can offset the UCLA dominance in the 60s and 70s.

We are all playing for #2, in my opinion. Duke, Kentucky, and UNC will probably be pretty close for spots #2 - #4. Kansas should be #5 and then maybe Indiana. But I am just guessing at that point.

-Jason "you can thank Sam Gilbert for UCLA's dominance!" Evans

When they did this in '08, KU finished 2nd to you guys. (Originally they were #3, but they found an error in their calculations, which pushed them ahead of UNC for second).

Post '08, KU has 4 conference championships and one title game loss (which counts almost as much as a title game win in their weird scoring system). Duke, UNC, and Kentucky all have title game wins in that span.
Pre '84, you're bringing in the whole craptastic Ted Owens era. Ted does have two final fours on his resume, but his 182 losses are more than Roy + Self combined.


I would not be surprised at all if Indiana moved ahead in these rankings.

[SCMatt33]

I agree with the sentiment that this point system does diminish deep tournament runs and major conference titles relative to mid and low major conference titles. Penn and Princeton get credit for 8 points for each Ivy League title (they get credit for a tourney title for getting the auto bid since they don't have a tournament). That's almost as much as an Elite Eight appearance. 3 Ivy League titles is almost the same as an NCAA title. That doesn't seem right.

From here on out there are some minor spoilers. The rest contains a decent guess to how the top 5 will turn out. If you'd rather see it as it's released, skip the rest of this post.

I did rough calculations for the top teams for everything other than sanctions and player accomplishments. It turns out that while Duke was pretty close to UK, UNC, and UCLA while considering only Final Four's or better. When you add in Elite Eight's and conference titles, Duke starts to really lag behind the other three. Here are approximate numbers considering all categories beside player accomplishments (AA and Draft) and sanctions. 1) UCLA - 830, 2) UNC 793, 3) UK - 780, 4) Duke 673, 5) Kansas - 639. I'm fairly confident that those are the top 5 with UCLA being pretty hard to reach, though they did have a few sanctions and I feel that UNC will beat them in terms of AA teams and draft picks, but not enough to pass them. UK is definitely close enough to pass UNC, but I feel like their sanctions might keep them short. Kansas is kind of close to Duke, but again, I don't think its enough to be passed. For what it's worth, I also calculated Indiana, but they only got 413. That's probably in the top 10, but its lower than I expected. The bottom line is that consistent performance over time is rewarded in this system over a few years of greatness.

A few notes. I assumed that they will count records of vacated seasons based on WKU getting points for 1971.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

Not a bad list, but there's got to be a place for somebody from the Bubas era ... Art Heyman, maybe? He was national player of the year in 1963, the first year of the survey.

Also, a pretty good player named J-Will might be worthy of inclusion..

[Bluedog]

As expected, Duke is #4, well ahead of #5 Kansas. The 70s really killed us. Funny how the "best teams" according to ESPN include only one national championship team:

Best teams (1962-present)
1985-86 (37-3, NCAA runner-up)
1991-92 (32-4, NCAA champions)
1998-99 (37-2, NCAA runner-up)

Their starting five is Hurley, Redick, Hill, Heyman, and Laettner.

[Duvall]

As expected, Duke is #4, well ahead of #5 Kansas. The 70s really killed us.

Duke scored more points in 2001 under this model (48) than it did in the entire 70s (34).

[SilkyJ]

As expected, Duke is #4, well ahead of #5 Kansas. The 70s really killed us. Funny how the "best teams" according to ESPN include only one national championship team:

Best teams (1962-present)
1985-86 (37-3, NCAA runner-up)
1991-92 (32-4, NCAA champions)
1998-99 (37-2, NCAA runner-up)

Their starting five is Hurley, Redick, Hill, Heyman, and Laettner.

Tough to leave the 2001 team off, which had 5 NBA starters on it in Duhon, Jwill, Dunleavy, Shane and Boozer.

We can quibble about the starting five, as we have done many times here over the years, but those are the right 8 guys (starting 5 + Jwill, Dawkins, Shane...in some order)

[Bluedog]

I demand a recount. UCLA just clocked in at #2. Clearly, the more recent future is weighed much more heavily if UNC was able to make up for all those championships. Seems like it was very close: "[UCLA] Lost 13 points due to sanctions and vacated wins (would've been No. 1 team in study if not for that)."

[SCMatt33]

I demand a recount. UCLA just clocked in at #2. Clearly, the more recent future is weighed much more heavily if UNC was able to make up for all those championships. Seems like it was very close: "[UCLA] Lost 13 points due to sanctions and vacated wins (would've been No. 1 team in study if not for that)."

It doesn't have anything to do with time weighting. This scoring system really weighted consistent performence over fleeting greatness. Teams really got punished for any extended periods of medicroty. A national title only got 10 more points than a final four loss, which is easily made up through good records, all-Americans, etc.

I do think ESPN did a good job at thinking outside the box a bit for the "best teams" part. You can certainly make a case for 2001, but I think that the 86 team rarely gets enough credit for how great they were I relation to Duke' title teams (plus '99).

[Bluedog]

It doesn't have anything to do with time weighting.

Right, I was mostly kidding. Still, Duke 1990s scored more points than UCLA 1960s with its 5 national championships (I realize that 60-61 were not included, so perhaps those two years made the difference).