All-Time College Basketball Program Rankings

#1      

Fighter of the Nightman

Fighter of the Nightman
Chicago, IL
Fighter of the Nightman
Random, semi-OT post on a very slow Friday for me! The idea of Illinois being a "top 25" or "top 15" program all-time comes up quite a bit. So, I had the idea to do what they do with the AP Poll (i.e., a first place vote is worth 25 points, a second place vote is worth 24 points, etc. all the way down to a #25 vote being worth one point) using multiple different all-time categories that were conveniently available in a super clean table in Wikipedia! So, copy/paste into Excel, assign a point value to a ranking and sum up the categories ... boom! Here are the categories I used:

1) All-Time Winning Percentage
2) National Championships
3) Championship Game Appearances
4) Final Fours
5) Elite Eights
6) Sweet Sixteens
7) NCAA Tournament Appearances
8) Total Weeks in the AP Poll
9) AP Top 25 Finishes
10) #1 Seeds

I would love to add other things like NCAA Tournament wins, top 4 seeds, 20-win seasons, etc., but I just didn't have those organized in a top 25 list anywhere to do quickly. Also, just in case I explained that poorly, here is an abbreviated example using Kansas.

1) #3 in All-Time Winning Percentage = 23 points
2) #5 in National Championships = 21 points
...
9) #4 in AP Top 25 Finishes = 22 points
10) #3 in #1 Seeds = 23 points
---> Total of 222 points across all 10 categories, which puts them at #4 among all programs.

Anyway, it's just a fun exercise, but here is the list it spat out!

1. Kentucky - 243
2. North Carolina - 241
3. Duke - 229
4. Kansas - 222
5. UCLA - 221
6. Indiana - 173
7. Louisville - 170
8. Syracuse - 166
9. Villanova - 165
10. UConn - 165
11. Michigan State - 162
12. Arizona - 159
13. Michigan - 148
14. Ohio State - 132
15. Illinois - 127
16. Cincinnati - 123
17. Purdue - 122
18. Georgetown - 112
19. Florida - 108
20. Arkansas - 100
21. Oklahoma State - 96
22. Houston - 96
23. Marquette - 94
24. Oklahoma - 91
25. UNLV - 89

Some notable programs people might be interested in that fell in the "receiving votes" category, lol...

29. Maryland - 74
30. Kansas State - 73
32. Wisconsin - 69
37. Iowa - 62
50. Missouri - 28

Anyway, just for fun! This method has super obvious flaws (e.g., not giving more weight to being among the best nationally in Final Four appearances vs. getting a #1 seed) and it's obviously grading strictly on a "curve" rather than rewarding the pure metrics ... but that list came out looking a lot like one I might make, with some obvious adjustments (e.g., moving 5-time-National-Champion-UConn way up).

If anyone wanted to take a stab at what they thought fair "points" values for each category would be, I could try to rework it to calculate the all-time list that way!

Go Illini!
 
#2      
Goillinikobd
Fighter of the Nightman said:
Random, semi-OT post on a very slow Friday for me! The idea of Illinois being a "top 25" or "top 15" program all-time comes up quite a bit. So, I had the idea to do what they do with the AP Poll (i.e., a first place vote is worth 25 points, a second place vote is worth 24 points, etc. all the way down to a #25 vote being worth one point) using multiple different all-time categories that were conveniently available in a super clean table in Wikipedia! So, copy/paste into Excel, assign a point value to a ranking and sum up the categories ... boom! Here are the categories I used:

1) All-Time Winning Percentage
2) National Championships
3) Championship Game Appearances
4) Final Fours
5) Elite Eights
6) Sweet Sixteens
7) NCAA Tournament Appearances
8) Total Weeks in the AP Poll
9) AP Top 25 Finishes
10) #1 Seeds

I would love to add other things like NCAA Tournament wins, top 4 seeds, 20-win seasons, etc., but I just didn't have those organized in a top 25 list anywhere to do quickly. Also, just in case I explained that poorly, here is an abbreviated example using Kansas.

1) #3 in All-Time Winning Percentage = 23 points
2) #5 in National Championships = 21 points
...
9) #4 in AP Top 25 Finishes = 22 points
10) #3 in #1 Seeds = 23 points
---> Total of 222 points across all 10 categories, which puts them at #4 among all programs.

Anyway, it's just a fun exercise, but here is the list it spat out!

1. Kentucky - 243
2. North Carolina - 241
3. Duke - 229
4. Kansas - 222
5. UCLA - 221
6. Indiana - 173
7. Louisville - 170
8. Syracuse - 166
9. Villanova - 165
10. UConn - 165
11. Michigan State - 162
12. Arizona - 159
13. Michigan - 148
14. Ohio State - 132
15. Illinois - 127
16. Cincinnati - 123
17. Purdue - 122
18. Georgetown - 112
19. Florida - 108
20. Arkansas - 100
21. Oklahoma State - 96
22. Houston - 96
23. Marquette - 94
24. Oklahoma - 91
25. UNLV - 89

Some notable programs people might be interested in that fell in the "receiving votes" category, lol...

29. Maryland - 74
30. Kansas State - 73
32. Wisconsin - 69
37. Iowa - 62
50. Missouri - 28

Anyway, just for fun! This method has super obvious flaws (e.g., not giving more weight to being among the best nationally in Final Four appearances vs. getting a #1 seed) and it's obviously grading strictly on a "curve" rather than rewarding the pure metrics ... but that list came out looking a lot like one I might make, with some obvious adjustments (e.g., moving 5-time-National-Champion-UConn way up).

If anyone wanted to take a stab at what they thought fair "points" values for each category would be, I could try to rework it to calculate the all-time list that way!

Go Illini!
Click to expand...
Nice, the two that surprised me at first glance are THE Ohio State University and Cincinnati, the two that bracket us.
 
#3      
Fighter of the Nightman
^ Yeah, Cincinnati really fell on hard times in recent eras, but they have a good history (including 2 National Championships!). OSU Basketball is just weird. It seems they are a totally "feast or famine" program, stringing together a bunch of great accomplishments and then just being a non-factor in between.
 
#4      
RollChief
Fighter of the Nightman said:
Random, semi-OT post on a very slow Friday for me! The idea of Illinois being a "top 25" or "top 15" program all-time comes up quite a bit. So, I had the idea to do what they do with the AP Poll (i.e., a first place vote is worth 25 points, a second place vote is worth 24 points, etc. all the way down to a #25 vote being worth one point) using multiple different all-time categories that were conveniently available in a super clean table in Wikipedia! So, copy/paste into Excel, assign a point value to a ranking and sum up the categories ... boom! Here are the categories I used:

1) All-Time Winning Percentage
2) National Championships
3) Championship Game Appearances
4) Final Fours
5) Elite Eights
6) Sweet Sixteens
7) NCAA Tournament Appearances
8) Total Weeks in the AP Poll
9) AP Top 25 Finishes
10) #1 Seeds

I would love to add other things like NCAA Tournament wins, top 4 seeds, 20-win seasons, etc., but I just didn't have those organized in a top 25 list anywhere to do quickly. Also, just in case I explained that poorly, here is an abbreviated example using Kansas.

1) #3 in All-Time Winning Percentage = 23 points
2) #5 in National Championships = 21 points
...
9) #4 in AP Top 25 Finishes = 22 points
10) #3 in #1 Seeds = 23 points
---> Total of 222 points across all 10 categories, which puts them at #4 among all programs.

Anyway, it's just a fun exercise, but here is the list it spat out!

1. Kentucky - 243
2. North Carolina - 241
3. Duke - 229
4. Kansas - 222
5. UCLA - 221
6. Indiana - 173
7. Louisville - 170
8. Syracuse - 166
9. Villanova - 165
10. UConn - 165
11. Michigan State - 162
12. Arizona - 159
13. Michigan - 148
14. Ohio State - 132
15. Illinois - 127
16. Cincinnati - 123
17. Purdue - 122
18. Georgetown - 112
19. Florida - 108
20. Arkansas - 100
21. Oklahoma State - 96
22. Houston - 96
23. Marquette - 94
24. Oklahoma - 91
25. UNLV - 89

Some notable programs people might be interested in that fell in the "receiving votes" category, lol...

29. Maryland - 74
30. Kansas State - 73
32. Wisconsin - 69
37. Iowa - 62
50. Missouri - 28

Anyway, just for fun! This method has super obvious flaws (e.g., not giving more weight to being among the best nationally in Final Four appearances vs. getting a #1 seed) and it's obviously grading strictly on a "curve" rather than rewarding the pure metrics ... but that list came out looking a lot like one I might make, with some obvious adjustments (e.g., moving 5-time-National-Champion-UConn way up).

If anyone wanted to take a stab at what they thought fair "points" values for each category would be, I could try to rework it to calculate the all-time list that way!

Go Illini!
Click to expand...
Brother you're going to be dangerous on here now that you've discovered ChatGPT
 
#6      
TX Illiniwek
Fighter of the Nightman said:
Random, semi-OT post on a very slow Friday for me! The idea of Illinois being a "top 25" or "top 15" program all-time comes up quite a bit. So, I had the idea to do what they do with the AP Poll (i.e., a first place vote is worth 25 points, a second place vote is worth 24 points, etc. all the way down to a #25 vote being worth one point) using multiple different all-time categories that were conveniently available in a super clean table in Wikipedia! So, copy/paste into Excel, assign a point value to a ranking and sum up the categories ... boom! Here are the categories I used:

1) All-Time Winning Percentage
2) National Championships
3) Championship Game Appearances
4) Final Fours
5) Elite Eights
6) Sweet Sixteens
7) NCAA Tournament Appearances
8) Total Weeks in the AP Poll
9) AP Top 25 Finishes
10) #1 Seeds

I would love to add other things like NCAA Tournament wins, top 4 seeds, 20-win seasons, etc., but I just didn't have those organized in a top 25 list anywhere to do quickly. Also, just in case I explained that poorly, here is an abbreviated example using Kansas.

1) #3 in All-Time Winning Percentage = 23 points
2) #5 in National Championships = 21 points
...
9) #4 in AP Top 25 Finishes = 22 points
10) #3 in #1 Seeds = 23 points
---> Total of 222 points across all 10 categories, which puts them at #4 among all programs.

Anyway, it's just a fun exercise, but here is the list it spat out!

1. Kentucky - 243
2. North Carolina - 241
3. Duke - 229
4. Kansas - 222
5. UCLA - 221
6. Indiana - 173
7. Louisville - 170
8. Syracuse - 166
9. Villanova - 165
10. UConn - 165
11. Michigan State - 162
12. Arizona - 159
13. Michigan - 148
14. Ohio State - 132
15. Illinois - 127
16. Cincinnati - 123
17. Purdue - 122
18. Georgetown - 112
19. Florida - 108
20. Arkansas - 100
21. Oklahoma State - 96
22. Houston - 96
23. Marquette - 94
24. Oklahoma - 91
25. UNLV - 89

Some notable programs people might be interested in that fell in the "receiving votes" category, lol...

29. Maryland - 74
30. Kansas State - 73
32. Wisconsin - 69
37. Iowa - 62
50. Missouri - 28

Anyway, just for fun! This method has super obvious flaws (e.g., not giving more weight to being among the best nationally in Final Four appearances vs. getting a #1 seed) and it's obviously grading strictly on a "curve" rather than rewarding the pure metrics ... but that list came out looking a lot like one I might make, with some obvious adjustments (e.g., moving 5-time-National-Champion-UConn way up).

If anyone wanted to take a stab at what they thought fair "points" values for each category would be, I could try to rework it to calculate the all-time list that way!

Go Illini!
Click to expand...
This is great...thanks for putting it together. I've heard Illinois called "the best program that has never won a National Title." This supports that claim...everyone ahead of us has won a Natty. Ohio State's was back in 1960, but they have one.
 
#8      
Fighter of the Nightman
TX Illiniwek said:
This is great...thanks for putting it together. I've heard Illinois called "the best program that has never won a National Title." This supports that claim...everyone ahead of us has won a Natty. Ohio State's was back in 1960, but they have one.
Click to expand...
Yeah, it is pretty interesting if you just took that overall top 25 from above and kept the rankings but then displayed how many National Championships each team has.

1. Kentucky - 8
2. North Carolina - 6
3. Duke - 5
4. Kansas - 4
5. UCLA - 11
6. Indiana - 5
7. Louisville - 3
8. Syracuse - 1
9. Villanova - 3
10. UConn - 5
11. Michigan State - 2
12. Arizona - 1
13. Michigan - 2
14. Ohio State - 1
15. Illinois - 0
16. Cincinnati - 2
17. Purdue - 0
18. Georgetown - 1
19. Florida - 3
20. Arkansas - 1
21. Oklahoma State - 2
22. Houston - 0
23. Marquette - 1
24. Oklahoma - 0
25. UNLV - 1

So it sort of shows how comparatively poorly programs like UCLA, UConn and Florida rank in other categories, whereas programs like Syracuse, Arizona, Illinois, Purdue, etc. are sort of the opposite.
 
#11      
Fighter of the Nightman
Fighter of the Nightman said:
Random, semi-OT post on a very slow Friday for me! The idea of Illinois being a "top 25" or "top 15" program all-time comes up quite a bit. So, I had the idea to do what they do with the AP Poll (i.e., a first place vote is worth 25 points, a second place vote is worth 24 points, etc. all the way down to a #25 vote being worth one point) using multiple different all-time categories that were conveniently available in a super clean table in Wikipedia! So, copy/paste into Excel, assign a point value to a ranking and sum up the categories ... boom! Here are the categories I used:

1) All-Time Winning Percentage
2) National Championships
3) Championship Game Appearances
4) Final Fours
5) Elite Eights
6) Sweet Sixteens
7) NCAA Tournament Appearances
8) Total Weeks in the AP Poll
9) AP Top 25 Finishes
10) #1 Seeds

I would love to add other things like NCAA Tournament wins, top 4 seeds, 20-win seasons, etc., but I just didn't have those organized in a top 25 list anywhere to do quickly. Also, just in case I explained that poorly, here is an abbreviated example using Kansas.

1) #3 in All-Time Winning Percentage = 23 points
2) #5 in National Championships = 21 points
...
9) #4 in AP Top 25 Finishes = 22 points
10) #3 in #1 Seeds = 23 points
---> Total of 222 points across all 10 categories, which puts them at #4 among all programs.

Anyway, it's just a fun exercise, but here is the list it spat out!

1. Kentucky - 243
2. North Carolina - 241
3. Duke - 229
4. Kansas - 222
5. UCLA - 221
6. Indiana - 173
7. Louisville - 170
8. Syracuse - 166
9. Villanova - 165
10. UConn - 165
11. Michigan State - 162
12. Arizona - 159
13. Michigan - 148
14. Ohio State - 132
15. Illinois - 127
16. Cincinnati - 123
17. Purdue - 122
18. Georgetown - 112
19. Florida - 108
20. Arkansas - 100
21. Oklahoma State - 96
22. Houston - 96
23. Marquette - 94
24. Oklahoma - 91
25. UNLV - 89

Some notable programs people might be interested in that fell in the "receiving votes" category, lol...

29. Maryland - 74
30. Kansas State - 73
32. Wisconsin - 69
37. Iowa - 62
50. Missouri - 28

Anyway, just for fun! This method has super obvious flaws (e.g., not giving more weight to being among the best nationally in Final Four appearances vs. getting a #1 seed) and it's obviously grading strictly on a "curve" rather than rewarding the pure metrics ... but that list came out looking a lot like one I might make, with some obvious adjustments (e.g., moving 5-time-National-Champion-UConn way up).

If anyone wanted to take a stab at what they thought fair "points" values for each category would be, I could try to rework it to calculate the all-time list that way!

Go Illini!
Click to expand...
Someone liked my post today, and the notification got me thinking about this again ... so sorry for the shameless bump! :ROFLMAO: However, I think this list (and again, I am not presenting this as some great methodology ... you could call the order coincidence for all I care!) really does organize itself into what I subconsciously saw as the all-time tier lists as a young fan ... so circa the mid-2000s.

1) BLUE BLOODS - 200+ Points
1. Kentucky - 243
2. North Carolina - 241
3. Duke - 229
4. Kansas - 222
5. UCLA - 221

UCLA is nearly 50 points above the next school on the list ... this seems like such a natural cutoff for the all-time "Blue Bloods" category to me. You can certainly make an argument that Indiana is a Blue Blood all-time, but then I think you open it up to Louisville (their combo seems a lot like ours and Purdue as far as all-time history ... see below), and you certainly have to start talking about UConn with all of its titles ... it's probably cleaner just to keep it at these five, IMO.

2) ELITE BUT NOT BLUE BLOODS - 170+ Points
6. Indiana - 173
7. Louisville - 170

To me as a kid, these programs were always in such a unique spot as being so uniquely close to Blue Bloods but decidedly below the top 5 when looking at the full picture. This has of course become a lot "murkier" over the last two decades with UConn and Villanova winning multiple titles and Michigan State making several Final Fours, but I still think this feels right. If I were being honest, I would have to slide at least UConn and Villanova into here, and almost certainly Michigan State, though.

3) NEARLY ELITE PROGRAMS - 100+ Points
----> 3A) 150+ Points
8. Syracuse - 166
9. Villanova - 165
10. UConn - 165
11. Michigan State - 162
12. Arizona - 159

----> 3B) 100+ Points
13. Michigan - 148
14. Ohio State - 132
15. Illinois - 127
16. Cincinnati - 123
17. Purdue - 122
18. Georgetown - 112
19. Florida - 108
20. Arkansas - 100

This is a broad category, but I think it works that way (again, almost certainly moving UConn and maybe Villanova up a tier). All of these programs have had elite stretches mixed with subpar stretches, and (with the exception of UConn) none of them has reached the "top of the mountain" for a sustained period of time ... yet. Their fans can all rightfully be extremely proud of their histories while still also being frustrated that they've never taken that next step. The main thing I would say gets a team into 3A rather than 3B is either (1) a bit better luck in March Madness (e.g., MSU over Illinois when our regular season stats are better than theirs all-time) or (2) an exceptional track record of sustained success over many decades (e.g., Arizona being above Florida despite Florida's two national titles and more Final Fours).

4) GOOD PROGRAMS - ... Let's Call it 89+ Points :ROFLMAO:
21. Oklahoma State - 96
22. Houston - 96
23. Marquette - 94
24. Oklahoma - 91
25. UNLV - 89

These programs all have something to be proud about, but they're also all missing way too much to slide into that next tier. Oklahoma State has two (rather ancient) national championships, but they've been pretty inconsistent. If we expanded beyond the teams that made my top 25, this would probably go down to about 60+ points? Anything below that gets into Illini Football territory, where even if you have an impressive history, it has to have mixed with a ton of crap to get that bad of consistency metrics. :ROFLMAO:
 
#12      
Calvin
The title of the thread is "all time", but I wonder what it would look like to have a generational decay factored in. So for example, every year in the past drops a percent down to a minimum of like 5%. Florida, for example, should look better due to their all time success being mostly recent, and I think that matches perceptions better as well. It's tough to come up with a really good metric since there have been different eras.
 
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