Putting MU's success in perspective

[Windyplayer]

ESPN published an article on the biggest underachieving teams based on talent in college basketball and the write-up on Wake Forest really stood out to me, especially the portion in bold...

Wake Forest: The Demon Deacons have been one of the dregs of the ACC the past few seasons, but it wasn't long ago that Wake Forest had the talent to contend for an NCAA title. The 2008-09 squad featuring Jeff Teague, Al-Farouq Aminu, James Johnson and Ishmael Smith soared to the top of the Associated Press rankings after opening the season with 16 straight wins, but it floundered down the stretch and lost to Cleveland State in the opening round of the NCAA tournament. The postseason failure was nothing new for Wake Forest, which has advanced to the Sweet 16 just once in the past 17 seasons. That's pretty disappointing for a program with an alumni base that includes Tim Duncan, Chris Paul, Josh Howard and Darius Songalia.

http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/85399/ten-underachievers-based-on-talent

[Ellenson Guerrero]

ESPN published an article on the biggest underachieving teams based on talent in college basketball and the write-up on Wake Forest really stood out to me, especially the portion in bold...

Wake Forest: The Demon Deacons have been one of the dregs of the ACC the past few seasons, but it wasn't long ago that Wake Forest had the talent to contend for an NCAA title. The 2008-09 squad featuring Jeff Teague, Al-Farouq Aminu, James Johnson and Ishmael Smith soared to the top of the Associated Press rankings after opening the season with 16 straight wins, but it floundered down the stretch and lost to Cleveland State in the opening round of the NCAA tournament. The postseason failure was nothing new for Wake Forest, which has advanced to the Sweet 16 just once in the past 17 seasons. That's pretty disappointing for a program with an alumni base that includes Tim Duncan, Chris Paul, Josh Howard and Darius Songalia.

http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/85399/ten-underachievers-based-on-talent

The part that stood out to me was putting Darius Songalia in a list alongside Duncan and Paul.

[martyconlonontherun]

Kind of misleading about the 1 sweet 16 season and then adding Duncan's name. If you go back a few more years to include Duncan's years, they would have 3.

[Spotcheck Billy]

Dino Gaudio wasn't the best coach that's for sure. Wake also is one of the (if not) smallest D1 schools in the country, I think they normally have done very well considering ... but Gaudio's last season was a terrible crash and burn and then the bottom fell out after rebuilding started

Wake is my favorite team after MU, I lived there in the Mugsy years and have closely followed the program ever since.

[Windyplayer]

Dino Gaudio wasn't the best coach that's for sure. Wake also is one of the (if not) smallest D1 schools in the country, I think they normally have done very well considering ... but Gaudio's last season was a terrible crash and burn and then the bottom fell out after rebuilding started

Wake is my favorite team after MU, I lived there in the Mugsy years and have closely followed the program ever since.

The loss of Skip Prosser was devastating for that program (and yes, from a human standpoint). They've never really recovered since.

[LAMUfan]

how small is wake?  there are some very small schools with DI sports, santa clara is smaller than my high school

[forgetful]

how small is wake?  there are some very small schools with DI sports, santa clara is smaller than my high school

Its not small.  About 5,000 undergraduates and about 3,000 additional graduate students.  The have a law school and medical school.

Well over a billion dollar endowment.

[GooooMarquette]

Its not small.  About 5,000 undergraduates and about 3,000 additional graduate students.  The have a law school and medical school.

Well over a billion dollar endowment.

Depends on how you define "small" for D-1 schools.

Not small when looking at D-1 schools overall, perhaps.  But in a top conference like the ACC, Wake is pretty small at about 7,500 students total.  The next smallest schools (BC, Duke and Miami) are all about twice as large as Wake at around 14,000-15,000, and every other school in the ACC is at 20,000+.

Always nice when a school of Wake's size and quality can compete with the big boys.

[Spotcheck Billy]

I incorrectly posted smallest D1 school, in retrospect I believe smallest school in a BCS conference (prior to BEast split).

[wiscwarrior]

I incorrectly posted smallest D1 school, in retrospect I believe smallest school in a BCS conference (prior to BEast split).

My daughter is a grad. I believe they are one of the smallest schools playing D-1 football (along with Rice). Quite an athletic program considering its size.

[JWags85]

how small is wake?  there are some very small schools with DI sports, santa clara is smaller than my high school

Santa Clara is?  Its over 8K kids combined and close to 5500 for undergrad.  You must have went to a massive HS, even a mega HS like New Trier isn't that big.

[LAMUfan]

4000 in my high school in LA, soooo you got me santa clara is a little bigger

[ResidentBrown]

Our conference mates, Butler and Providence, only have about 4,500 students each.

Just out of curiosity, I checked the enrollment for all of the Big East schools (undergraduate and postgraduate).

DePaul - 24,966
St. John's - 21,354
Georgetown - 17,130
Marquette - 12,002
Villanova - 10,482
Seton Hall - 9,745
Creighton - 7,730
Xavier - 6,650
Butler - 4,667
Providence - 4,587

These numbers indicate that school size doesn't necessarily correlate with basketball success. 

[Sunbelt15]

ESPN published an article on the biggest underachieving teams based on talent in college basketball and the write-up on Wake Forest really stood out to me, especially the portion in bold...

Wake Forest: The Demon Deacons have been one of the dregs of the ACC the past few seasons, but it wasn't long ago that Wake Forest had the talent to contend for an NCAA title. The 2008-09 squad featuring Jeff Teague, Al-Farouq Aminu, James Johnson and Ishmael Smith soared to the top of the Associated Press rankings after opening the season with 16 straight wins, but it floundered down the stretch and lost to Cleveland State in the opening round of the NCAA tournament. The postseason failure was nothing new for Wake Forest, which has advanced to the Sweet 16 just once in the past 17 seasons. That's pretty disappointing for a program with an alumni base that includes Tim Duncan, Chris Paul, Josh Howard and Darius Songalia.

http://espn.go.com/blog/collegebasketballnation/post/_/id/85399/ten-underachievers-based-on-talent

This may be a reason for colleges to start paying players. Getting good, NBA ready, college players staying and developing into great college players which increases school's NCAA tournament chances.