Last Two B1G Teams to Win the NCAA Title: Still Michigan and MSU
With Wiscy's flameout last night, we're assured that the NCAA title will not be finding a home at a B1G school this season. So the last two Big Ten teams to win the championship are still MSU in 2000 and Michigan in 1989.
The Big Ten has had SIX teams make the championship game since 2000, and we're 0-6 in those games. Interestingly, it's six different teams, too - Indiana in 2002, Illinois in 2005, Ohio State in 2007, MSU in 2009, Michigan in 2013 and Wisconsin in 2015.
Here's to Wagner, Wilson, Rahk and the boys ending that streak in 2018!
Xavier Simpson will be the X factor (no pun intended) for this team next year. I think Matthews will do a fine job in replacing Irvin, if not better, given his pedigree. The question is how much will X learn in order to take over Beilein's offense effectively next year to replace Walton Jr. (oh and he needs to improve his shooting to boot)
They weren't part of the Big Ten then.
They beat the Big Ten in that title game too - IU
Does that honestly count as a B1G championship tho? lol.
Next year's Big Ten hoops should be interesting. Wisconsin will take a major step back (bunch of lost seniors), but others should be good including UM, MSU (even if Bridges goes pro), Indiana...
the year after Frank Kaminsky and Sam Dekker left? Until it happens, we can't ever take that as a given. They've officially reached MSU's level of benefit of the doubt. Maybe even more so
They don't have Bo Ryan coaching them anymore, though. Greg Gard is more of an unknown. Is he a good coach in his own right or has he just been riding it out with Ryan's guys?
Wisconsin has one of the most underrated athletic departments. I saw a stat that they have made the tournament in MBB and a bowl game in FB for 15 straight years. Next closest team was Baylor at 4 years. It's even more impressive that they've done this with pretty low ranked recruits.
Impressive? Sure. But it also sounds a lot like the Red Wings and the playoff streak (which will mercifully end this year.) Considering most of us weren't born when Wisconsin won a National Championship in either sport, do you take the streak and the steady consistency? Or do you take a couple titles here and there and be okay with a 4-8 or 16-16 season from time to time? (I know we as Michigan fans have direct experience with the latter)
Even though pro sports to college isn't an apples to apples comparison, you make a really good point. During that time they've had 4 different football coaches, and 3 different coaches in BBall when their tourney streak began. So changing coaches isn't the issue.
UW spending is always at the lower end of the P5 spectrum. I think if they got some better facilities and spent more on better assistants they could recruit a lot better and get over the hump. I would think then they wouldn't have to choose between the two. They always seem to be close, but end up just shy of achieving a championship.
They've officially reached MSU's level of benefit of the doubt. Maybe even more soI don't know about that. Izzo's been at MSU 22 years. Greg Gard has been at UW for two. Gard's done well to keep the machine going thus far, but now he's got to rebuild for the first time.
It'll be nice having some continuity going into next year. Beilein's offense requires a lot of chemistry, and I think that was a huge issue early in the year (there was always flashes of greatness, but they couldn't seem to close out games).
Looking back at last year, there were so many wasted minutes on Chatman, Dawkins, Doyle, and not to mention never knowing if Caris was going to play. There's only so much coaching allowed in the offseason. It'll be nice going into this offseason with 4 of the starting 5 already set.
It'll be nice going into this offseason with 4 of the starting 5 already set.Fingers crossed.
Interesting fact: only 16 teams have won titles since 1989, and that includes one-offs by teams like UNLV, Arkansas, maybe Maryland that aren't necessarily "power" programs every year, with a lot of those coming in the early 00's. It isn't going quite the way of college football where there are maybe 8 teams a year who have any chance at a title, but college basketball isn't as wide open as you'd think with a single-elimination tournament format.
so --- interestingly enough --- that's exactly equal with college hoops.
I have the asterick on 16 because technically 17 schools have claimed a MNC since 1989 (Alabama, Michigan, USC, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Miami FLA, Nebraska, Georgia Tech, Texas, Washington, Florida, Florida State, LSU, Auburn, Clemson, Colorado). But GT & Colorado shared in 1990 for their only MNC in the era, and would have likely played each other at some point if we had a 2- or 4- team playoff.
Sixteen different champions in 27 years actually seems like a lot to me. This is a sport where UCLA once won 10 national titles in 12 years.
we would have done so with 11 losses on the season, which would tie the '87-'88 Kansas team for most season losses by an NCAA champion.
The difference might be that the Jayhawks had a player of the caliber of Danny Manning, and we didn't.