AP All-Time Top 100 Mens Basketball Programs
The Associated Press has been ranking the best teams in college basketball since January 1949. Over 68 years and more than 1,100 polls, a total of 200 schools have been ranked and 59 of them have been ranked No. 1 (Saint Louis was the first No. 1).
To determine the all-time Top 100, the AP formula counted poll appearances (one point each) to mark consistency and No. 1 rankings (two points each) to acknowledge elite programs. Keep in mind that AP doesn’t release a poll after the NCAA Tournament, so eventual national champions are not factored into these rankings. Instead, this list focuses more on those programs that consistently appear in the poll and/or at the top during the regular seasons.
The poll started with 20 teams ranked each week until it was reduced to just the Top 10 midway through the 1960-1961 season. It then returned to a Top 20 format for the 1968-69 season. The poll expanded to 25 teams starting with the 1989-1990 and it has remained that size since then. The first preseason poll was introduced at the start of the 1961-1962 season.
Michigan is #14. Kentucky is #1. Other B1G programs include IU (#6), Illinois (#11), OSU (#12), MSU (#13), Maryland (#17), Iowa (#23), and Purdue (#24).
A fair and honest assessment of where the program ranks historically. Top 15ish. Syracuse and Arizona are 1-time champions I'd rank ahead of us, but I'd even put us ahead of some 2-time champions like Florida and San Francisco. Getting Banner #2 would give us a serious boost in prestige IMO
My thought process led me believe #15 where they should rank. Don't find any problem with ranking of other B1G teams...
I looked at the same list for football, and compared the two:
http://collegefootball.ap.org/top-100
There are 7 schools that made the top 25 in both football and hoops. If you add the overall rankings for football and hoops, here's how they rank in terms of long-term success at both sports.
Football Rank/Basketball Rank/Combined Rank
OSU 1/12/13
Michigan 7/14/21
ND 3/18/21
UCLA 17/4/21
Oklahoma 2/20/22
MSU 19/13/32
Iowa 25/23/48
So, we're tied for second overall.
AP polling isn't a perfect metric, but I think it does a pretty good job of reflecting long-term athletic excellence. The only surprise to me is that MSU is top 20 in both.
FWIW, the drop-off in basketball is much faster and steeper than football. Our #7 in football is much closer to the top than #7 in basketball. Five Blue Bloods truly do rule college basketball.
Note: I did this comparison pretty quickly; may have missed something.
Incredible that Iowa makes both Top 25 lists, given that they are the smallest public in the Big Ten and have tons of built-in recruiting disadvantages.
I think the B1G in general fares well because as a conference we've always cared about both sports. Overall, we have 7 of the top 25 in football, and 8 in hoops.
Outside of Kentucky, the SEC really doesn't care about basketball. They have 8 of the top 25 in football, but only UK in hoops. It's amazing they got 3 teams in the Final 8 - they hadn't even had 2 in the sweet 16 in forever.
At the same time, the ACC traditionally doesn't care much about football, though they did manage to have 4 of the top 25 (FSU, YTM, Clemson and Pitt). They have 6 hoops teams on the list - 4 in the top 10.
Unless I missed something, the BIg 12 has only 2 for football and 1 in hoops. Of course, they have fewer schools than the other big conferences.
It's a bit surprising more PAC teams don't appear on the list (3 football, 2 basketball) - maybe east coast bias in rankings?
March 30th, 2017 at 12:11 AM ^
Glad I didn't get involved in the Syracuse argument, because, damn, a lot of my family went to school there. And they're from the Finger Lakes region.
Some of those statistics for the blue bloods are unbelievable. 100% of polls had UCLA in it in the 70's, and Duke has only been left out of the polls 4 times since the mid 90's. That's insane consistency.