College Basketball Program Tiers

[JoeSmith1721]

Have seen this floating around other forums the past few days. Not sure who put it together but it's always fun to take a look at these things.

[MU_Beav]

Scratch Georgetown and Arkansas  out of tier two.

[wadesworld]

Scratch Georgetown and Arkansas  out of tier two.

Yeah overall it's a pretty good list but their placement of some programs makes it hard to figure out if they're going for the entire history and sustained success or if they're going for recent success.

[oldwarrior81]

sure looks pretty arbitrary.

I wonder if the "Prestige" is based on 3 years or 30 years.

Hard to believe the majority of the Big East on a par with Princeton, Penn and San Francisco.

UConn should have stayed in the American Athletic as it looks on a par with the Big East.

[dgies9156]

Little bit of legacy work in here.

UCLA is not a blue blood today, at all. Georgetown and Arkansas have fallen and Villanova and Michigan State are Blue Bloods. Syracuse is a solid program as is St. John's. Indiana also should fall to a solid program.

[Johnny B]

Little bit of legacy work in here.

UCLA is not a blue blood today, at all. Georgetown and Arkansas have fallen and Villanova and Michigan State are Blue Bloods. Syracuse is a solid program as is St. John's. Indiana also should fall to a solid program.

Yeah were ahead of Indiana no doubt
......

[Marquette Fan in WI]

Gonzaga should move up
Cincinnati should move down. Kenyon Martin hasn't been there in over 20 years.
UNLV should move down. Grandmama hasn't been there in 30 years.
UCLA should move down. Wooden hasn't been there in 45 years.
Indiana should move down. Mike Davis was there too recently.
Georgetown and Arkansas should move down, Patrick Ewing has been there both too long and to recently.
I mean seriously when you list "Great Programs" who is putting Arkansas and Cincinnati in there and omitting Gonzaga.
DePaul should move down...just because.

[Frenns Liquor Depot]

UVA too high

[Galway Eagle]

Gonzaga should move up
Cincinnati should move down. Kenyon Martin hasn't been there in over 20 years.
UNLV should move down. Grandmama hasn't been there in 30 years.
UCLA should move down. Wooden hasn't been there in 45 years.
Indiana should move down. Mike Davis was there too recently.
Georgetown and Arkansas should move down, Patrick Ewing has been there both too long and to recently.
I mean seriously when you list "Great Programs" who is putting Arkansas and Cincinnati in there and omitting Gonzaga.
DePaul should move down...just because.

Doesn't seem like that long ago UCLA made three final fours in a row though. But good point about Arkansas and Cinci. If nothing else, this list proves how fluid being CBB "royalty" is.

[The Sultan]

This must have been put together awhile ago.  No idea how Baylor can be called mediocre and Cincinnati great.  It just seems about 10-15 years out of date.

[brewcity77]

It's an all-time list. Cincy has two titles and 6 final fours. I get they aren't sexy right now, but they're up there historically, even if most of that history is 30-40+ years ago.

[The Sultan]

It's an all-time list. Cincy has two titles and 6 final fours. I get they aren't sexy right now, but they're up there historically, even if most of that history is 30-40+ years ago.

Then why is Indiana below Kansas?

Why is Virginia, with their one national championship, in the same tier as those with multiple championships?

No matter how you slice it, it's simply not logical.

[Hards Alumni]

Then why is Indiana below Kansas?

Why is Virginia, with their one national championship, in the same tier as those with multiple championships?

No matter how you slice it, it's simply not logical.

I bet the place it originated got a lot of clicks and comments.   

[tower912]

Throw that up on a big screen in a crowded sports bar (those were the days).     Would agree that MU was and is a solid program.    Would of course like to move up.   

[GooooMarquette]

Then why is Indiana below Kansas?

Why is Virginia, with their one national championship, in the same tier as those with multiple championships?

No matter how you slice it, it's simply not logical.

Yeah, if it's all-time, then IU, Cuse and UL all belong in the top tier, or at least somewhere above UVa and GTown.

And Loyola in tier 6? They have two Final Fours and a Championship, and there are teams one and even two tiers above them that have never made a single FF.

[Galway Eagle]

Yeah, if it's all-time, then IU, Cuse and UL all belong in the top tier, or at least somewhere above UVa and GTown.

And Loyola in tier 6? They have two Final Fours and a Championship, and there are teams one and even two tiers above them that have never made a single FF.

Right but outside of those two runs they have one other all time. Not even a lot of nits where they could claim they've just been bad in conference tournaments

[oldwarrior81]

Jeff Sagarin did a ranking of programs back in 2009.
https://assets.espn.go.com/photo/2009/1004/cbe1.pdf

This is how they ranked in 2009:
1) Kentucky, 2) UCLA, 3) Kansas, 4) North Carolina, 5) Indiana, 6) Illinois, 7) Duke, 8) Purdue, 9) Ohio State, 10) Iowa
11) Louisville, 12) Notre Dame, 13) Michigan, 14) Minnesota, 15) Michigan State, 16) St. John's, 17) Cincinnati, 18) Oklahoma State, 19) Utah, 20) Oklahoma
21) Villanova, 22) NC State, 23) Syracuse, 24) MARQUETTE, 25) USC, 26) DePaul, 27) Kansas State, 28) Wisconsin, 29) Missouri, 30) Stanford


updated rankings after adding in Sagarin's rankings 2010-2020

1) Kentucky, 2) Kansas, 3) North Carolina, 4) Duke, 5) UCLA, 6) Indiana, 7) Illinois, 8) Purdue, 9) Ohio State, 10) Louisville
11) Michigan State, 12) Iowa, 13) Michigan, 14) Notre Dame, 15) Cincinnati, 16) Villanova, 17) Minnesota, 18) Oklahoma State, 19) Syracuse, 20) St. John's
21) Oklahoma, 22) Wisconsin, 23) NC State, 24) MARQUETTE, 25) Kansas State, 26) Utah, 27) USC, 28) West Virginia, 29) Tennessee, 30) Missouri
31) Arkansas, 32) Temple, 33) Stanford, 34) Maryland, 35) DePaul, 36) California, 37) BYU, 38) Washington, 39) Georgetown, 40) Arizona
41) Alabama, 42) Wake Forest, 43) Texas, 44) Oregon State, 45) Oregon, 46) Vanderbilt, 47) Iowa State, 48) Dayton, 49) Connecticut, 50) Xavier

[GooooMarquette]

Right but outside of those two runs they have one other all time. Not even a lot of nits where they could claim they've just been bad in conference tournaments

Perhaps, but two full tiers above? Not so sure 'Bama or Tennessee's lone Elite Eight and bunch of one or two and dones warrants two full tiers above Loyola's two Final Fours.

For reference, all-time tournament records:

Loyola: 13-5
'Bama: 21-21
UT: 22-23

[oldwarrior81]

Sagarin's ratings go back to 1997.

Over those 24 seasons, Loyola has had an average ranking of 165.  In only two of those years they've ended in the top 100.
To find a third season better than 100 you have to go back to the days of Alfredrick Hughes in the mid 80's.
That's over 90% of the seasons outside the top 100.   As a fan, not really something I'd be willing to trade for their Final Four run as a 11-seed in 2018.  Really?   Two tournament bids in 52 years.

Alabama hasn't been ranked below #100 since the early days of CM Newton in the early 70's.
For Tennessee you have to go back to the Kevin O'Neill days to find a season outside the top 100.

[WhiteTrash]

Sagarin's ratings go back to 1997.

Over those 24 seasons, Loyola has had an average ranking of 165.  In only two of those years they've ended in the top 100.
To find a third season better than 100 you have to go back to the days of Alfredrick Hughes in the mid 80's.
That's over 90% of the seasons outside the top 100.   As a fan, not really something I'd be willing to trade for their Final Four run as a 11-seed in 2018.  Really?   Two tournament bids in 52 years.

Alabama hasn't been ranked below #100 since the early days of CM Newton in the early 70's.
For Tennessee you have to go back to the Kevin O'Neill days to find a season outside the top 100.

I have no comments about the rankings but Alfredick Hughes was a player.

[GooooMarquette]

Sagarin's ratings go back to 1997.

Over those 24 seasons, Loyola has had an average ranking of 165.  In only two of those years they've ended in the top 100.
To find a third season better than 100 you have to go back to the days of Alfredrick Hughes in the mid 80's.
That's over 90% of the seasons outside the top 100.   As a fan, not really something I'd be willing to trade for their Final Four run as a 11-seed in 2018.  Really?   Two tournament bids in 52 years.

Alabama hasn't been ranked below #100 since the early days of CM Newton in the early 70's.
For Tennessee you have to go back to the Kevin O'Neill days to find a season outside the top 100.

Understood. But if this is purported to be an all-time tiering system, the pre-1997 results are every bit as relevant as the 'Sagarin era'. And much of Loyola's NCAA success was in the '60s...plus they had significant NIT success when it was still THE tournament (runner-up in '39 and '49, and third place in '62).

In contrast, Alabama's first ever NCAA appearance was in 1975, and they only went to the NIT after it was the inferior tournament the (first appearance in 1973). Tennessee fared a little bit better pre-1970, with one NCAA appearance in 1967, and NITs in 1945 and 1969. Still, even Tennessee's pre-1970 success was negligible compared to Loyola's.

Like I said, maybe Loyola belongs one tier below, but there is no way the all-time performance of UA or UT warrants two tiers above them.

[brewcity77]

Then why is Indiana below Kansas?

Why is Virginia, with their one national championship, in the same tier as those with multiple championships?

No matter how you slice it, it's simply not logical.

I'm not at all saying it's a perfect list. I think IU has to be in the top tier if you're going all-time. I think UVA, with one title and three Final Fours, should be located right next to Marquette.

If nothing else, I think this shows how hard these are to do. I'm sure the original author had his justification, and if 50 Scoopers made lists of the top 100 or so programs broken into tiers we'd have 50 different lists. But I do think Cincy is probably better than where most would rate them. Is it flawed? Definitely. But it's fun and it starts discussion, so may as well enjoy the debate.

[Galway Eagle]

The most seemingly accurate list I've seen was a few years back when ESPN did the top 50 in 50 list