Only Four Schools Ranked in Top 25 in Both Basketball and Football

Submitted by BursleyHall82 on

USA Today released the coaches preseason Top 25 Basketball Poll today. See it here. Michigan got a handful of votes and finished 44th.

I compared the basketball poll with the current Top 25 football poll, and found that only four schools are ranked in both sports: Louisville, Wisconsin, West Virginia and North Carolina. It underscores how difficult it apparently is for schools to be elite in both sports. In the past 30 years, only two schools have won national championships in both sports: Florida and (yes) Michigan.

Any theories as to why Alabama can't be great at basketball and Kansas can't be great at football?

UM Fan from Sydney

October 20th, 2016 at 3:48 PM ^

Those moronic fans started the "at least basketball season is coming soon" comments about three weeks ago. I love it when they're in that mood because it reminds me that their football team returned to sucking like they did for almost forty years prior to their savior Dantonio's arrival.

MtP Michigan Man

October 20th, 2016 at 4:33 PM ^

less vocal this week about basketball season with Schilling out indefinitely after getting injured. 

I think they just want 2016 to end - from the Bama Beatdown, the 15 v 2 upset in March, the 2-4 football start, and now Schilling - Sparty has seen better years...

Soulfire21

October 20th, 2016 at 4:49 PM ^

Tried to talk to a Spartan co-worker about football (it's all we usually talk about this time of year) and I could tell he wasn't into it so I pressed him on it a bit and he was like "Well, you know, we've got a presidential election, we've got wars in the middle east, there's just other things besides football to worry about."

This coming from someone who we would IM back and forth all day about football last season.

NittanyFan

October 20th, 2016 at 3:41 PM ^

historically, I'd say they are the SEC's 4th best-team ---- Kentucky is obviously #1, and LSU would come in at #2, and Arkansas #3.

But Alabama was consistently in the Top 20 back in the 70s and 80s (CM Newton and Wimp Sanderson) and has had some sporadic success in the 2000s, particularly in the mid-2000s.  They lost to Connecticut in the Elite Eight in 2004 --- UConn went on to win the NCAA Title.

Alabama has a winning record in hoops against every SEC team except UK and Arkansas.

NittanyFan

October 20th, 2016 at 3:52 PM ^

they have a hell of a history the last 25 years, but literally NO history before that.  

Never even made an NCAA tournament until 1987, and then had rather severe NCAA sanctions in the late 80s-early 90s that really put the program in a hole.

It really is remarkable what Lon Kruger did there.  Got them to the Final Four in basically no time after those sanctions.  Then Billy Donovan built even further upon that after Kruger left for Illinois.

MI Expat NY

October 20th, 2016 at 6:13 PM ^

Almost nobody in the SEC has history beyond the last 25 years (if you put Arkansas's success into the SWC category).  Kentucky dominated the SEC in the one-bid NCAA era, and nobody did anything spectacular in the late 70's or 80's.  LSU was goodish for about a decade, during that time, aided by a miracle run to a final four.  Alabama was ok, but never got past the sweet 16. Tennessee has had spots of success.  Nobody else has made more than a dent in the national landscape up until Florida's rise.  

canzior

October 20th, 2016 at 3:41 PM ^

Well all the big strong fast athletes are from the south (/s) all the tall athletes are from the northeast.  Joking but in all seriousness, basketball has the highest percentage of major sports with athletes having elite athletes in their families.  Elite athletes typically play pro and live near large cities base don their careers.  Not many pro teams in Alabama, Mississippi etc.

I know a kid who is a top 30 player in 2019 in football.  He has waning interest in UNC because they are a basketball school.  That matters to kids.   If you can go to Va Tech for example and have a raucus crowd, or UNC where you will never be more important than the basketball team....where would you go?

UMAmaizinBlue

October 20th, 2016 at 3:41 PM ^

Why Kansas isn't good at football, it's an historical thing. Kansas had Dr. Naismith as their first basketball coach. He literally wrote the (rule) book on basketball. It's similar for Alabama - they had Paul "Bear" Bryant as one of their early coaches, and it made that school care more about football historically. It's probably more involved that this answer, but it's a glimpse at one of the many reaons, I'm sure.

Tuebor

October 20th, 2016 at 3:45 PM ^

It takes having a great coach to be good.  It is rare to have great coaches in multiple sports at a single school.  One of my favorite stories from Bo's Lasting Lessons is when he interviewed with Wisconsin, comes away unimpressed, and tells Bob Knight that Wisconsin's AD doesn't have his house in order.  Bob Knight then passed on the Wisconsin job.  Can you imagine if Wisconsin had gotten Bo Schembechler and Bob Knight in the '70s and '80s?

 

Oh yeah, and good coaches cost money.  Two good coaches cost more money.

pbmd

October 20th, 2016 at 3:56 PM ^

Very few athlete and coaches at KU are from Kansas --either football or basketball
They bring in peckerwoods from other states
The basketball peckerwoods are often elite
Football peckerwoods - not very often
Ex. Charlie Weiss is a peckerwood from New Jersey- not that great a coach
In general- people in Kansas like football but just don't insist on being good or being elite like they do for basketball




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LJ

October 20th, 2016 at 3:43 PM ^

Here's a guess: there's not room for true fan obsession of both sports at one school.  One will always be prioritized over the other in terms of resources, marketing, etc.  That's why you get flashes of brilliance in the "secondary" sport from some schools, but never consistent results.  Among the list of true bball bluebloods with consistent success over multiple decades, none are also on the football list.

The Legion

October 20th, 2016 at 6:43 PM ^

Multiple decades no, anyone would be hard pressed to find a program very successful in both major college sports (basketball, football) over the course of 20+ years. Only one that comes to my mind is Wooden's UCLA teams from 1964-1975 when he won all those NCAA titles. UCLA football during that time had several top ten finishes, more than 4 I believe. They had a couple of terrible seasons mixed in as well, but not too many. 

mGrowOld

October 20th, 2016 at 3:51 PM ^

What  is the only school and in what year did they have both their football and basketball programs ranked #1 in the pre-season polls?

 

Give up?

 

 

University of Michigan - 1977

Basketball team was consensus #1 for the first 6 weeks of the season and prolly would've won the whole thing had Ricky Green not broken his hand in the 2nd game of the NCAA tourny.

Football, led by Jr QB Ricky Leach opened up tied for #1 and then sat atop the polls until our shocking 16-0 shutout by Minnesota in week 7.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976%E2%80%9377_Michigan_Wolverines_men%2…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1977_Michigan_Wolverines_football_team

BursleyBaitsBus

October 20th, 2016 at 3:51 PM ^

So... that means Michigan is the only school to win championships in Basketball, Hockey and Football in the past 5 decades right? 

LSAClassOf2000

October 20th, 2016 at 4:37 PM ^

You know, I think the stars aligned for Kansas maybe once in modern times, and it was 2007 when Mark Mangino (the pre-Weis) took them to 12-1 and I think Kansas basktball made a deep tournament run that year as well. Back to normal for them after a "lightning in a bottle" sort of year there. 

funkywolve

October 20th, 2016 at 4:43 PM ^

You can go back more than 30 years and the list of teams that have won both an NCAA title in football and basketball isn't going to get much longer.  

OSU and MSU have won both.  Who else???

funkywolve

October 20th, 2016 at 5:01 PM ^

The OP had Florida and Michigan as the only teams to do in it the last 30 yrs.  OSU and MSU are the only other teams I can think of that have done it no matter how far you go back.