Who Are the 10 Best College Basketball Programs From The Last 10 Years?
It’s August 1 and it’s a fairly slow week in the world of basketball. I don’t like it one bit. So with that in mind, we’re going to look at college basketball and the last 10 years. I brought it to Twitter and had a few people say throw it into a blog and here we area. The premise is pretty simple. Who have been the 10 best college basketball programs for the last decade? Note, we’re starting this with the 2008-09 season, just as a point of reference.
The way we debated this was looking at the program as a whole. Not just national titles, due to the fact the NCAA Tournament is incredibly fluky. I say it time after time again, it’s absolutely awesome, but in no way does it give us the best 4 teams in the Final Four, let alone the title game. So we looked at consistency throughout the decade, how often did they advance in the NCAA Tournament, how many regular season titles did they win and stuff along those lines. We took out anything NBA related or recruiting related as well. Because the NCAA is dumb, I’m not eliminating Louisville’s title. They won that, we saw it happen.
There’s 0% chance people agree with me. So let me know your top-10 @barstoolreags and *coughs, clears throat* embrace debate, because you could go a lot of different ways here.
1. North Carolina: 9 NCAA Tournaments, 6 Sweet 16’s, 5 Elite Eights, 3 Final Fours, 2 National Titles, 3 Championship Games, 5 ACC Regular Season Titles, 1 ACC Conference Tournaments, Average Seed: 2.88
I’m giving the No. 1 spot to UNC here as they still have that title from 2009 to give them the edge for me. They’ve been pretty consistent in the regular season, which I value as they have 5 ACC regular seasons – arguably the best conference in college basketball every year.
2. Duke: 10 NCAA Tournaments, 7 Sweet 16’s, 4 Elite Eights, 2 Final Fours, 2 National Titles, 1 ACC Regular Season Title, 4 ACC Tournament Titles, Average Seed: 2
Duke gets the No. 2 spot here due to the 2 national titles. Their regular seasons have been a bit weird with just 1 regular season title, but it’s hard to argue with the average seed of 2. That said, they’ve been pretty consistent in the regular season, typically finishing in the top-4 in the ACC standings.
3. Kentucky: 8 NCAA Tournaments, 7 Sweet 16s, 6 Elite Eights, 4 Final Fours, 1 National Title, 2 Championship Games, 5 SEC Regular Season Titles, 6 SEC Tournament Titles, Average Seed: 3.25
Why isn’t Kentucky higher on this list? Two words. Billy Gillispie. They still have one year of his resume on the list, which resulted in an NIT trip. They’ve been pretty consistent under Calipari since then though, tying UNC for the most trips to the Final Fours and getting to the second weekend quiet a bit. They also have been the class of the SEC, taking advantage of winning both the regular season and conference tournament.
4. Kansas: 10 NCAA Tournaments, 7 Sweet 16’s, 5 Elite Eights, 2 Final Fours, 1 Championship Game, 10 Big 12 Regular Season Titles, 6 Big 12 Tournament Titles, Average Seed: 1.5
You want to talk about consistency, there’s no one more consistent than Kansas. All they do is win Big 12 regular season titles. There’s something to that, especially in a league where it’s round-robin play. Winning the Big 12 or Big East now is more impressive than other leagues simply because everyone is playing the same schedule. There’s no imbalance and a team taking advantage of a weaker schedule. The average seed being a 1.5 is pretty ridiculous as well. I’d be willing to listen to them over Kentucky, but I’m factoring in NCAA success here to give UK the slight edge.
5. Villanova: 9 NCAA Tournaments, 3 Sweet 16s, 3 Elite Eights, 3 Final Fours, 2 National Titles, 4 Big East Regular Season Titles, 23Big East Tournament Titles, Average Seed: 3.33
Villanova finally shook the notion that they consistently underachieved in the NCAA Tournament when they won the title in 2016. They then became the best program of the last few years when they won again this past season. What Villanova has been really good at though? Winning in the regular season. Since the split of the Big East, it’s been Villanova’s conference. And I know it will upset people, but the ‘new’ Big East has been a top-3 conference for all but the first year. So it’s not like it’s a mid-major. As the years go on, I expect Nova to jump up the rankings.
6. Louisville: 8 NCAA Tournaments, 5 Sweet 16s, 4 Elite Eights, 2 Final Fours, 1 National Title, 3 Regular Season Conference Titles, 4 Conference Tournament Titles, Average Seed: 3.62
I told you I don’t care about vacated title. We saw Louisville win that title and they didn’t cheat on the court, so I’m counting it. They have success in the Big East and ACC, winning 3 regular season titles and 4 conference tournaments. When it comes to the NCAA Tournament, they typically get to the second weekend and have the title. They still have some clout when it comes to a top-10 ranking in my book.
7. Michigan State: 10 NCAA Tournaments, 6 Sweet 16s, 4 Elite Eights, 3 Final Fours, 1 Championship Game, 3 Big 10 Regular Season Titles, 3 Big 10 Tournament Titles, Average Seed: 4.4
I know the whole fun thing to say is ‘You can’t bet against Izzo in March.’ But really it’s you can’t bet against Izzo in February. He gets his team really going in the middle of conference play and that allows them to win 3 Big 10 Tournaments and regular season titles. The one thing lacking on the resume for the last decade is that national title, but again, the NCAA Tournament is so fluky. They’ve been one of the best teams in the country that just had a bad game – looking at Middle Tennessee State in the first round and Syracuse this past season in the Sweet 16. A title would bump them up quite a bit.
8. UConn: 5 NCAA Tournaments, 3 Sweet 16s, 3 Elite Eights, 3 Final Fours, 2 National Titles, 2 Conference Tournament Titles, Average Seed: 5.8
UConn is one of the weirder teams to judge here. They haven’t really been successful during the regular season or consistent as they’ve made the NCAA Tournament just 50% of the time. However, during those 5 years they’ve been wildly successful in the NCAA Tournament. Two national championships still mean something and that’s really what they have going for them to be in the rankings. The Ollie era will end up hurting them (sans 2014 run) so hopefully Hurley can turn it back around.
9. Gonzaga: 10 NCAA Tournaments, 5 Sweet 16s, 2 Elite Eights, 1 Final Four, 1 Championship Game, 9 WCC Regular Season Titles, 8 WCC Tournament Titles, Average Seed: 5.7
Speaking of models of consistency, Gonzaga is absolutely one of the most consistent programs in America. I don’t care that they play in the WCC and I won’t hold that against them. They have success dominating that league and come NCAA Tournament time have decent success. 50% of trips to the second weekend is better than most programs in the country and they finally got to the Final Four two seasons ago.
10. Arizona: 8 NCAA Tournaments, 6 Sweet 16s, 3 Elite Eights, 5 Pac-12 Regular Season Titles, 3 Pac-12 Tournament Titles, Average Seed: 4.75
There were a handful of teams for this last spot, but I’ll give it to Arizona. They’ve been consistent in the regular season, winning 50% of Pac-12 titles. The knock against them is failure in the NCAA Tournament, but they made 3 Elite Eights and barely lost each of those games. If Derrick Williams goes to the hoop in 2011 they have a Final Four on their resume. Again, the NCAA Tournament is pretty fluky, so it’s tough to hold 3 Elite Eights against them.
Honorable mentions (in order): Michigan, Butler, Wisconsin, Florida, Virginia