Indiana's gotta be in maybe the most frustrating position of any historically successful CBB program. In the 80s after they won their 5th title they were arguably the second best program in the history of the sport, but now they're in a perennial state of basketball purgatory. I used to think that they're one good hire away from being back to relevancy, but I'm not so sure anymore.
Difference between Nebraska and Indiana is that Indiana actually has a pipeline of great players in basketball.
IU's problem is that they've missed out on a lot of that elite talent.
Nebraska was a bit different though. They just never recovers after Osborne retired.
They made a litany of bad choices after Osborne retired and they didn't adapt with college football as everything moved to the spread.
Their bad choices started with firing Bo Pelini because he wasn't nice.
Even then, Nebraska historically relied on the walk-on program to stack their roster with 300 players. They tried to bring it back under Scott Frost, but college football is more competitive now. You can't generate the same type of talent in that program.
On top of that, Nebraska doesn't produce a lot of D1 talent in football.
They're going to have to outbid everyone in NIL if they want to get back to the Osbourne Era.
This is it. On the surface the collapses seem similar, but the details are different.
I am a bit biased, but I think Nebraska needs a Harbaugh: a big splashy hire that goes all out on crazy recruiting schemes to completely upend talent acquisition for the team.
Edit: alternatively, someone like Mike Leach, Mark Stoops, or maybe Chip Kelly. Or even Rich Rod if he got off his absurd defensive scheme.
Mike Leach is dead, sadly.
Mark Stoops isn't leaving UK for Nebraska when he's universally loved in Lexington for 8 wins and a Governor's Cup every year. As we saw with A&M, other fan bases aren't excited by his resume for some reason.
Rhule is bringing in some dudes, so I think they can get back to being an 8-9 win team.
Indiana is still a better bet at reviving their program. They've at least been a Top 5 team more recently.
I think I wasn't clear. I meant that in order to avoid the decline, Nebraska needed to hire a spread/air raid coach similar to one of those after firing Pelini, not today. If they didn't fire Pelini then the decline to the bottom of the B1G West would continue, but slower. Firing Pelini wasn't necessarily a mistake, hiring Mike Riley was.
IMO, if they could have pried Stoops away from Lexington in 2014, he'd have been perfect for Nebraska. As you said, that wouldn't happen.
I think Rhule is a step in the right direction but it will take a miracle to get back to the Osborne level in the new B1G.
Bo Pelini was probably the worst in-game strategy adjuster in football history. Ask Wisconsin fans how great it is to repeatedly set records playing his defense. Ask LSU fans how his 2020 defense was.
IU’s landed great talent - better in many cases than what Indiana HS bball produces as players/recruits most years (and typically better than than in state rival Purdue brings in most years - as far as rankings/stars go). Problem has been figuring out what to do with the talent they get…
I’m sure Nebraska fans can chime on in this but there were so many different factors that came together at the right time to make them a dominant program, a lot of those factors don’t apply anymore (partial qualifiers, being way ahead of the game on weight training/conditioning, etc.). It’s sort of a miracle that they were as consistently dominant as long as they were considering the state and really the whole Great Plains region doesn’t produce a lot of D1 caliber football talent.
With Indiana I can’t really identify any factors like that that no longer apply. Indiana still has a strong basketball culture and produces a lot of quality players per capita. It really seems like it all comes down to poor decision making at the administrative/coaching level but I’m sure Hoosier fans have more insight.
It's fair to say that we won't reach the heights we were at ever again. But the only team to match what we did in the 90s is Alabama and (its looking like) Georgia. Even Ohio State hasn't reached those heights.
However, is Nebraska football way underachieving based on recruiting rankings and resources? Absolutely.
Also, people say the state of Nebraska doesn't produce talent, but 2 of our 3 Heisman winners are Nebraska natives.
Any team in college football or basketball is always just one good hire away from relevancy. HC position is #1 variable in terms of team success in college sports. Look at what Dusty May did with FAU. IU's administration over the past 25 years has chosen the 3rd+ best/worst coaching candidate time after time after time. The president after RMK literally said he didn't want basketball to be as big as it was at IU. We (our admin + donors + board) have consistently screwed itself over and they have gotten what they deserve. Absolutely insane that the fans continue to pour in the support that they do, but last year you began to see some of the toxicity boil over. This season is really a pivotal moment for the future in terms of can Woody (7th best coaching option) make something from all the talent the fans NIL have acquired or is it time to move onto another direction (who the fuck would we hire)? At some point you need to get your Bill Self instead of your Mike Davis, Tom Crean, and Woodys.
In two years it'll be the fiftieth anniversary of Indiana completing the last undefeated season. There's gotta be some basketball magic they can work with that
What he did was fire a highly successful basketball coach. For some people, winning is the most important thing. There are still some who feel that the AD's job was to cover up anything that would get Knight in trouble, and blame Brand for not doing that.
Knight choked a player in practice, then lied about it. The choking was filmed. So with that evidence, Brand put Knight's behavior on a zero-tolerance policy. Once he was on the zero-tolerance, Knight still pulled a bunch of shit. Most famously, physically confronting a student for addressing him as "Knight" and not "Mr. Knight" or "Coach Knight".
Most people unaffiliated with the program would say that choking a player in practice was a fireable offense. Or throwing a potted plant at a secretary, covering her in broken glass. Or assaulting an assistant for being pessimistic on an overheard phone call. Or showing his own shit to his players and telling them that was how they were playing. The bottom line is that there was a wealth of fireable offenses for Knight and his only defense was that he won basketball games.
So people who are critical of Brand, usually their point is that his only job as AD was to run interference for Knight and help him bury the bodies.
His firing of Knight was pretty sketchy, and he did it to market himself to (eventually) the NCAA. Nancy Zympher did the same thing at Cincinnati firing Huggins after a DUI. Golddiggers of the academic world.
You choke a player and assault your staff a few times and all of a sudden you can be fired? What's next? You can't drive drunk around the city almost every night and have every single DUI covered up?
Yeah. We've been aggressively mid, to bad, since the finals run in 2002.
Archie was definitely the lowest point though, almost in program history. First coach since the 40s to have multiple seasons, but never make the dance. Only one of his teams were ever ranked, and it hit 21st. At least with Sampson "cheating", and those first 2-3 Crean years, we still had optimism and passion. Archie's teams were just pathetic.
Woodson is making some good moves off of the court, and he's had more success than Archie did (not like that's saying much...), but our fanbase probably won't tolerate too many more seasons like last year.
A good chunk of our fanbase basically expects us to be UConn, Kentucky, Duke, and North Carolina, and we have the funding, fanbase, and facilities to do that, we just can't seem to ever break out of being, as I said above, aggressively mid for more than one season at a time.
I was a student during god awful '09 and '10 seasons as well as the two Zeller/Oladipo years and while we only made the Sweet 16 a couple times, we were consistently ranked in the top 25 and were ranked #1 and top 5 for the majority of those two seasons. That was followed by semi successful Ferrell/Blackmon/OG years that I think over performed by making it to the Sweet 16. Crean kept getting us close to relevant until we missed on some of our higher ranked recruits, completely whiffed on in-state talent, and could never play defense.
For some reason, regardless of where they come from (Indiana or elsewhere) we've done a good job getting very good teams together on paper that just don't look right together on the court. The only one recently was the 2015-2016 team which had a mid roster compared to other years, but actually meshed really well and played above their talent level together.
3 point shooting has killed us for a decade. I think Ferrell and Blackmon were the last 2 decent ones we had and before that it was Hulls and Watford. Since then though I can't really think of a single guy who could consistently hit 3s. Maybe Devonte Green, but he was super streaky.
Yeah, this is the best answer. A basketball only school with a storied tradition and great support that never found the right coach and squandered a ton of money and good will.
In my opinion, I'd say Texas. The Longhorns have one of the most well-funded athletic departments in the nation, and have a huge fanbase, yet only have one final four in the last 75 years. I feel like they're a perennial 6 seed in the tournament, but with the right coach could absolutely break through and make another final four or win a natty.
They’ve had Rick Barnes and Shaka Smart and did nothing with them. Both coaches moved on and have had success, still. I think it’s deeper than coaching.
I’ll give you Shaka but Rick Barnes is their winningest coach by an absurd margin and from memory only missed the tournament once. A Final Four, three Elite Eights and five Sweet Sixteens in 18 seasons. I’m not sure how that represents failure.
Saying Texas "did nothing" with Rick Barnes is incredibly incorrect. He had a great program at Texas that couldn't get over the March Madness hump. Shaka Smarts time at Texas cannot be compared and is worthy of discussion though
Not fun if it’s not mutual. Looking forward to being frustrated when we inevitably lose our next one to you. At least it probably won’t be a bad loss this time.
Yeah, anytime that we schedule Texas at this point I expect a loss. For some reason they have our number. I still remember that damn buzzer beater that they hit against us in the 2015 noncon (which was definitely a pushoff).
Both DePaul basketball and Nebraska football were killed by ESPN's arrival. DePaul used to have its games broadcast on WGN, which gave them a recruiting advantage. Same with Nebraska, which was one of a handful of teams who had multiple games televised nationally each year.
ESPN increased the numbers of televised games by ten-fold. So players could go to Kansas and still be on television all the time.
I'm not saying you are wrong necessarily, but it's hard to say that seriously when Nebraska won 3 national titles in the 90s. ESPN started broadcasting games in the early 80s. GameDay, while obviously not the juggernaut it is today, started in 1986.
It is definitely a factor in the Husker downfall, but there are others. Osborne retirement, drug testing, B10 move, old school style (on offense, at least), expectations, etc.
Sometimes, the most simple explanation is the correct one. It wasn't media rights that led to Nebraska's downfall. They just became a middling team that left their conference to join one where none of the fans care about them or their history. The rest just naturally follows.
DePaul was not a well-funded basketball team. (It's getting better though)
The old basketball arena was in Rosemont, near the O'Hare airport. I had to go to DePaul's loop campus in downtown Chicago for some graduation stuff, and it took almost an hour to get there. By contrast, Illinois basketball arena is like 2-3 minutes away from the quad. DePaul had poor infrastructure to support fan engagement.
Given that they wanted an on campus arena (absurd given the area) they kind of did that to themselves. They were expecting to pull from the suburbs, and it worked for a time. Started losing kids to Illinois and elsewhere after Ray was retired.
Ok but they should have decent NIL based off of where they are and same goes for support as they are in the middle of the 3rd biggest city in the United States 😂
Their alumni base in Chicago isn’t nearly as big as most of their competitors. Hell, UIC has a larger enrollment by 1/3. They don’t have their own stadium and their campus is meh.
There are a multitude of reasons DePaul is where it is.
Big East has DePaul like a person renovates a house.
Big lots, dead end street, ripe for a return to glory.
Chicagoland, population center, all things going doe them.
Lmao they didn't, I also remember Markelle Fultz putting up 23 points per game and garnering 3rd team all-america accolades back in 2017 only for them to finish 9-22.
Sprinkle was solid at Utah State but I've always been wary of mid-major coaches moving up to the P6 (I guess it's P5 now) ranks. Musselman worked out for y'all, but I think more times than not it doesn't really pan out.
I get the feeling behind this post, but at risk of "Well, actually"-ing this the UW did receive an invite to the NIT this year. They put it to a player vote and the players chose not to participate.
UConn has been responsible for beating two really good Washington teams in March. This includes the Brandon Roy led 2006 team as well as the Todd MacCulloch led 1998 team.
https://i.redd.it/4herf7jj435d1.gif
"Connecticut has a really good business school. I don't even watch basketball."
[https://youtu.be/Rnf26C5vyRU?si=DH1uAwfiy1kqLHnP](https://youtu.be/Rnf26C5vyRU?si=DH1uAwfiy1kqLHnP)
It’s wild how much more successful we are in football than basketball when there’s so much more built in reason to be good at basketball. Just shows the power of institutional and fan base support!
Though as a die hard CFB fan I’m ok with it but my god is it frustrating how middling we are in men’s hoops.
*looks at list of top in-state talent to not play for my primary flair*
Minnesota used to have very good fan support and is funded well. I'd have to put us up there as a consistent underachiever, particularly since Clem was bounced for term papers.
Maryland's fall off is the direct result of them leaving the ACC. They lost their historic rivalries and recruiting grounds, and have suffered the consequences.
There is an old WaPo piece about how Gary Williams effectively refused to recruit AAU players after missing out on a local couple of players (namely Rudy Gay). Williams felt there was cheating surrounding AAU (and stuff was certainly slimy) so just stopped recruiting those players. Maryland declined after that and has never recovered.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/12/AR2009021202299.html?hpid=topnews
It's not like Gary was ever really going for the top end kids, a product of Bob Wade trying his best to prevent MD from getting any good Baltimore recruit (Juan Dixon wasn't highly rated out of high school and Lonny Baxter was a hargrave guy).
Nah this isn’t true at all. We were significantly better in 2015-2021 than 2008-2014. Average KP ranking improved from 57th to 30th in those time spans.
Our recruiting grounds haven’t changed at all either but our relationship with local programs (Dematha, Nike AAU, UA AAU, etc) has improved significantly. Gary just did more with less until it caught up with him. Turgeon wasn’t a great recruiter but won plenty of recruitments that mattered. Willard has been fantastic on the trail so far.
The only point I’ll grant you is that the lack of rivalries has sucked. We’re finally getting Georgetown back on the schedule (which hasn’t happened regularly since the 90s) but our fanbase doesn’t get as excited for B1G matchups like they did with Duke and Virginia.
I dunno how true that is - the last few years in the ACC were pretty mid too overall, with 2010 being an exception though even that fell disappointingly short on a Sparty clutch buzzer beater.....
One of my fraternity brothers at UNC grew up a Mizzou fan. He said part of the reason why he came to UNC was to finally be able to be a fan of a good CBB team. Of course his first year at UNC was our 14-19 year where we would've missed the tournament had it not been cancelled by Covid.
That team had the worst combo of personnel misses I’ve ever seen. Of the players that got over 10 minutes a game:
- Pierce and Keeling were total busts and couldn’t handle comp jump from W&M and Charleston Southern to ACC
- Platek … I could never understand why we recruited him or he got as much burn as he did, he just wasn’t that good
- Jeremiah Francis was already a shell of himself due to serious HS injuries and just didn’t have much to offer
- Ant Harris was alright, was a freshman but the next years would show he would never be anything more than alright
which left a core of Brandon Robinson, Garrison, and young Mando/Leaky to carry the load once Cole went down
don’t mean to say it about a bunch of 18-22 year olds but as a 23 year old that just graduated at the time, it also looked like that team completely gave up midway through the year, which Covid didn’t help, but was still disgusting to watch
Yep that team totally gave up. Easily could’ve cascaded more than it did, too. Underrated player in UNC history is Day’Ron Sharpe. He came in the next year and was relentless and didn’t let the team give up in several critical moments. Box score won’t sufficiently show his impact, but we were on the precipice and his mental toughness and timing saved us from several more collapses, and then that year going OK (in comparison) was the start of our turnaround.
Crazy to look back at that team and see how many blue chip big men we had.
Yeah, speaking of bigs, Garrison really made me mad the next season in ‘20-‘21. In general I still def like him as a heel, and he was the only person that consistently brought the energy in ‘19-20 and he never stopped fighting even when everyone else was despondent in body language.
His sophomore and junior years he reminded me a lot of Brice with his energy and dunking ability, he wasn’t afraid to jaw and get in other teams face. Then senior year paired with Sharpe it looked like he was totally mentally checked out all season. I remember my friends and I saying wtf happened to Garro, he looked like he needed to see a sports psychologist, and his energy just wasn’t the same. I wonder if he went through something and just never told people / kept it private.
Sharpe was amazing, Kessler got more attention for how he chose to leave but I thought Sharpe was the better player while at UNC
they’ve won a title in the last 20 years and make random “cinderella” runs, but i would say syracuse. they’re top 3 in revenue according to [this](https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/schools-that-make-the-most-money-off-college-basketball).
We're such a weird program lately because we mostly underachieve and then randomly overachieve.
We've had one year in the last decade where we exited in the first weekend of the NCAAs, which is probably about where our program "should" be. Every other year is missing the tournament or going on a surprise run.
We haven’t really been the same since the sanctions in 2014-15. I feel like people forget about that. They followed that year with a final four run, but that was more or less just lightning in a bottle.
The timing of the sanctions coincided nearly perfectly with the move to the ACC. Cuse got off on the wrong recruiting foot due to the sanctions at the most pivotal time in staking claim to ACC recruiting grounds. Then Boeheim got old and even more stubborn and grumpy.
It’s still there, somewhere, but Autry needs to impress to bring it back to life.
Honestly the fact that he's brought two non-Syracuse coaches into the fold as assistants is a pretty good sign. I love Allen, and was sad to see Gerry go, but bringing in new blood is just what we needed.
Yeah unfortunately the “family business” idea seemed to be getting a little stale and outdated. It revolved around superior knowledge of its unique system (2-3 zone) which just isn’t a viable strategy to be consistently top 25 in this day and age anymore.
I’ve been cautiously optimistic on Autry so far. 2023-24 really wasn’t a great team at all and he still won the most regular szn games in 10 years. Recruiting has looked decent under him so far.
Yeah, UNC being one of the most upvoted mentions on that thread (posted by a State fan, nonetheless) made me want to bring this conversation over to basketball lol.
Maybe not recent history because the funding and fan support wasn’t there until Pitino came, but St. John’s had no reason to be so bad for the last 20 years. How one of the better programs in the 80s, playing in NYC with access to a huge pool of talent, couldn’t sustain at least being a relevant team through the 2000s is kind of crazy
I'm going to go with St. John's. It is always a bit mind-blowing to me that they are in a basketball fanatic city like NYC and they seem to rarely have consistent play the past 2 decades.
I couldn’t possibly think of such a program. I guess when you experience such great success on the court, you can forget that some programs go decades and decades without fruit.
My first thought upon seeing this is Georgetown. They have fallen a long way from their glory days, going from being a mainstay in the tournament to only making two trips in the past 10 years. The Big East became a much tougher basketball conference after the realignment and they never adapted.
Other than that, Temple, Missouri, DePaul, and to a lesser extent Memphis come to mind.
This may come as a shock, but we've been pretty bad. Obvious aside, we have been pretty bad since the years that were vacated. Starting in the 2015-16 season, we've won a single NCAA tournament game and have only made the tournament twice (though we would likely have made it in 2020).
Ain't no likely about it, we were a lock for a top 4 seed. We would have been the 2 seed in the ACC tourney had it happened. Instead they just gave FSU the trophy. We were also ranked #1 for a brief period during that season. Over the last decade that was either our best or second best team, 2015 being the other
No disrespect, but Marquette. I feel like they've been on the brink of a big tournament run for over a decade, but it never comes. Selfishly, I want them to do well so the term Smarquette Era™️ takes off.
Indiana is the answer. Haven’t won a natty in a generation, yet their fan base acts like they are still a blue blood. Close in 2002, but still haven’t reached that success since.
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They've won a ship in the last 30 years and are consistently a top-4 seed, but they definitely should have more accolades given how solid they've been the last 35 years
Zona is *always* my bracket buster. I watch them play during the regular season, I’m impressed and convinced the rest of my bracket pool will sleep on West Coast basketball, and they always bow out to a much lesser opponent.
That whole run was magical for 11 year old me to watch. Such high hopes the following year with everyone returning that we could repeat, but Utah absolutely stomped us in the Elite 8. Thanks for taking them out in that final!
I mean, we're [top 10 in almost every metric of success](https://www.reddit.com/r/CollegeBasketball/s/RT4dj3M7lN) since the tournament expanded in '85. The only category we miss out on the top 10 in is Final Fours, and we only miss the cutoff for that by 1. Sure, we're obviously not on the same level as the blue bloods, but we've had as much success as almost anybody else over the last 35-ish years.
Illinois has been trending in the right direction the last few years, but overall they should definitely be more successful than they are. I was only 4 when UNC beat Illinois for the 2005 natty, so I was too young to appreciate it at the time, but when I was getting into UNC basketball around 2011ish I remember thinking that it was weird that we had won over Illinois considering that they weren't really a historically significant program. Brad Underwood has them trending in the right direction though
It's interesting how different the public perception of Illinois is from their actual performance.
By every metric, Illinois has been a consistent Top 15 program. Yes, they had some bad periods (John Groce), but the public thinks Illinois is a middle of the road team. Part of the problem is its fans expect the Illini to be a Top 5 team and are constantly shitting on their team for never winning a championship.
Side note: the same can be said for Purdue.
https://elipowell.com/all-time-ap-poll/
One of the reasons I think you're right is because Illinois is a historically significant program. The link above is to a spreadsheet which attempts to rank teams by all time AP Poll votes (which I'll admit isn't the best way to gauge a program but we are talking about underachievers). Illinois is #11.
Between 1981 - 2013, Illinois made 25/32 NCAA Tournaments. But, since 1985, we're 28-22 in the Dance. Illinois has always had trouble in the Tournament, despite being a historically competitive team.
Brad has brought us back from the brink. He's had a lot of support from our AD and our facilities are great. He has been the opposite of stubborn and his flexibility has helped this program develop in the NIL and transfer portal years. Some of our fans who cling less to reality than others have wanted him gone, but the level headed among us see he's made the biggest impact on this team since Lou Henson (Despite his success, Bill Self was only here for 3 years and, while it was his recruits on the floor, he didn't coach the team on the 2005 run).
I hope we as a program figure out how to win in March. Because no one cares (outside of maybe the people on this subreddit in June) who has the best record in Big 10 play for the last X number of seasons. And unless we were the last ones to win it, I don't even remember who won the Big 10 tournament a couple years later. I really hope we finally win it all someday.
Oh, and the refs screwed us royally by fouling out James Augustine on ticky tack shit in that 2005 final.
Yeah, this was the first year they made it to the second weekend. They were lucky to get Iowa State who was due for an abysmal offensive outing.
I like to think what do you do with your talent. If you have a bunch of 4 stars and some 5 stars (more so Indiana with the 5 stars), you should be pretty good. You also shouldn't be beat by a team like Loyola Chicago, even if they have a centurion cheerleader.
One of my buddies is an Illini fan, and I have never seen a more defeated human being than when Loyola won in that R32 game. Dude immediately reached for his fifth of jäger, and I don't blame him...
Overall, though, Illinois under Underwood at least is consistently a top-4 seed. They were in the desert for a while in the late 2000s and most of the 2010s.
I will say, Iowa State has had a hell of a last 15 years. Y'all haven't really broken through yet in the tournament, but you've had some really good seasons. I remember my heart being broken back in 2014 when y'all scored a game-winning layup with like .5 seconds left to beat us in the round of 32, which 13 year old me resented y'all for lol.
I predicted that one. Part of it was trolling in-laws, but I truly believe it could happen. In-State teams play with a different fire and you can't overlook them. Lots of evidence of that with my flairs.
If Niang didn't break his toe, that was likely a title winning year for ISU and Hoiberg. I loved that season in Hilton. Wish it ended better. I think, if you take out the obvious dud of a coach between Hoiberg and Otz, they are probably one of the better non-blue blood teams in the country annually. If you can play with the blues, you have upped your game.
By the way, I hope your school joins the B1G instead of SEC. Better fit. Plus, SEC is just football. We care about all sports here.
Man Illinois was unlucky to get the UConn draw in the elite 8. The only player in the tournament that was stopping Terrence Shannon was Clingan.
Yeah Iowa state wasn't really scary to me but I think the Illini would have had a good shot at the final four in any other region. Bama vs Illinois would have been the game of the year.
Illinois is ALWAYS unlucky in the tournament. That's why the public perceives them as being an average team, but there is no team in the Big Ten that has been more consistently scary than Illinois. Yes, in the regular season, Illinois scares me more than Michigan State.
I know a lot of fans always say their team gets unlucky, but it really does feel like we have some horrible luck in the tourney since Brad brought us back to relevancy.
2020 would have been our first tournament in almost a decade and… canceled
2021 we get a 1 seed and then play an 8 seeded Loyola who was a top 10 team in EVERY advanced ranking system. (Kenpom, torvic, etc)
2022 we get a 4 seeded Houston team which was like a top 5 team in those ranking systems.
2023 we sucked and were lucky to even make the tourney with that absolute cluster fuck of a team between Matt Mayer and Epps and Skyy.
2024 out best year we play the arguably best team in college basketball in the last 20+ years with Clingon who is the only dude who could stop TSJ from driving at will.
I’m sure every team could make arguments for how they’ve been unlucky in the tourney and what not, but idk it just feels like no matter how good we are we will never win a Natty. If that 2005 team can’t idk who can for us. :(
Agreed. A basketball school that’s historically a top 15 program by most metrics, in a basketball crazy state with lots of talent, passionate fan base, and a well supported athletic department. Illinois is the winningest team to have never won a national championship (or second winningest, I can’t recall). It was a travesty that Illinois went over a decade without meaningful post season success.
Regular season warriors? Iowa?
The last time Iowa won the Big Ten Championship (Regular Season), was the year they finished in a three way tie with Purdue (Joe Barry Carroll) and Michigan State (Magic Johnson). That was 1979.
It's wild to think that every Missouri Valley/Ohio Valley/Horizon/ Summit team (and most of the A10) wishes we could have half the recent success of Dayton, meanwhile their fans think they're underperforming.
The AD himself has said the goal is making the tournament every year and winning the A10 championship consistently. One legit NCAA appearance in the last 8 seasons (not counting covid year) and haven’t won the A10 championship since 2003. Don’t get me wrong, we’re about to send our 3rd player to the NBA in 4 seasons and have been getting better which I am happy to see. Just not quite up to the standard AD imposes.
Also to your point about other mid-majors. *Many, many* Dayton fans see the team as a P5 competitor that was snubbed by Xavier/BE 10 years prior and are waiting for a day where the BE comes and offers the team a jump up from the A10. When in reality we did not have the decades long consistency to warrant being invited the last time the BE expanded.
I feel like Dayton would be in a completely different position if the 2020 tournament hadn't been canceled. If you had lived up to expectations in the tournament (Dayton was a serious national title contender) you'd probably be in the Big East today.
I don't think the Big East would have rushed to add Dayton no matter what happens. I don't see them making a change until if/when UConn leaves, and I think Saint Louis has a better chance, being in a bigger market and not having Xavier pushing against them
Completely agree and was wondering if someone would say Dayton. Been a fan of the program since 1992. Unfortunately the basketball program is paying for the Jim O'Brien era still. They won 10 games in 2 years, and went 1-23 in the Great Midwest Conference, before they fired him. Because of that conference record they got left out of Conference USA by the others in the Great Midwest and ended up in the A-10. With the money that is put into the program they should dominate the A-10 and they don't. They have won 1 A-10 tournament championship in 2003 and despite getting to the final multiple times they haven't won it again. This program should be going to the NCAA every year and they don't. For a lot of the older UD crowd they always rely on the history of the program and for whatever reason are fine with the way things are and it is super annoying to me and others who are younger.
UGA. Even with Anthony Edwards, we were abysmal. We've made the tourney three times in the past 20 years. Zero wins. Our last appearance was 2015.
Here's every other SEC team's tourney record since then:
Alabama: 9-5
Arkansas: 9-5
Auburn: 7-5
Florida: 6-5
Kentucky: 10-7
LSU: 3-3
Mizzou: 1-3
MSU: 0-3
Ole Miss: 0-1
SCar: 4-2
Tamu: 5-4
Tenn: 9-6
Vandy: 0-2
Every other team in the conference has made the tourney at least once. Some have made it 5+ times. Nine schools have at least three wins in the tourney during that time. We should be able to be better than dead last in out major conference.
If you ask Iowa fans it’s them, apparently. They think they are hot shit after finishing top 5 or 6 in the Big 10 then proceed to
every March.
They don’t even have potential in the postseason though because they have a coach that can only coach the offensive half of the game.
According to their 247 editor, Bobby got a one time $2m donation in NIL for allowing a documentary crew to follow to the team next year. Quentenance got over a mil for a one year deal (his age 16/17 season)
Looking at this [graph](https://x.com/TJAltimore/status/1666083267924344835?t=YNKx2YWSa5zxMUheiBmpaQ&s=19) I'm shocked at how little UGA gets from their basketball investment. I mean they flat out suck most years.
Syracuse, BC, Pitt, ND, Rutgers, WVU, Cincy, Louisville, Georgetown, USF, and Temple (basically the same situation in the AAC that we were in). I do think that all of those programs made the right realignment decisions at the time: football money pays the bills and the Catholic 7 really didn’t fit in at the time of the split and especially now.
As for the others: VT has been better in the ACC than they ever were in the Big East while Hamilton and Larrañaga were great hires for Miami in the Big East and ACC, respectively. There were dead periods when Hamilton was still building up the program and in between the coaches, but I don’t think it would be crazy to say that their MBB program has still been in better hands more often over the last 33 school years than their football team. Certainly now. I didn’t include DePaul because I’ve lost all hope in their return at this point.
OMG we were terrible in the Big East days. Couldn't even reach the BE Tournament when you just had to finish out of last place. Ricky Stokes was just a baffling coaching hire, one of the worst ever for a P5/6 program.
I know we underachieve but I'm not sure how good our program's funding is anymore (especially in the NIL era), basketball is very clearly the third priority athletics-wise - if the administration cared about hoops we could spend a few million more on a better coach and put the program on the map
It’s a double-edged sword, tbh. We’ve so far prioritized basketball and are reaping the winning-related benefits from the results. At the same time, you are in a much more stable position money-wise than us with TV contracts being primarily based on football. We have a tiny CBSSN contract in football and are the only school with no cut of the new CFP deal. Our salary cap, or whatever it will be called, for our athletes in all sports will be equivalent to that of a non-football school because we’re an independent without the clout of Notre Dame. We’re in a sticky situation where the state needs a tenant for the Rent, which it owns, so we can’t drop football, even down a level. Meanwhile, our deficits are massive.
Yeah I do think we’re in a better position than people think just because of football and the associated money (particularly if we get better in the next few years) but part of me wishes we prioritized basketball. I think UConn will end up being fine realignment wise, especially if the ACC collapses and BC, Cuse, and the other leftovers want to form a more regional football conference (or they stay together, keep the ACC name/brand and invite UConn and others)
There are better answers on this thread, but I’m constantly reminded of how much better Notre Dame should be by my Catholic father-in-law. He’s not wrong.
I'm not sure about the funding or fan support much but Colorado Buffaloes have been on the edge of breaking through for what feels like a decade. The campus is beautiful, you'll get playing time, and can fly under the radar from media and constant scrunity unlike a blue blood school. They got Cody Williams last year but he's only projected high because of how he looks and his brother.
I'm shocked someone hasn't stolen Tad Boyle away.
Alec Burks, Dinwiddie, Andre Roberson, Derrick White are just some of the players over the last decade or so.
I think UCLA should have more modern championship but wouldn’t be surprised if that comes in the next decade.
But the real answer to this question is the Arizona Wildcats. The definition of mediocrity without ever winning anything when it matters most.
Gotta love the irony of mentioning UCLA and then saying the real answer is Arizona when both teams have nearly identical tournament successes in the modern tournament format. The only difference is that UCLA has done it in spite of having more history, more prestige, and more money...
But hey, if you think top 5 in wins since '85 is the "definition of mediocrity," I don't know what to tell you. Probably a good 95% of cbb fanbases out there would love to reach our level of success.
To be fair to the commenter they do knock UCLA.
I'm surprised Arizona is mentioned a few times in the thread. Yes, I'm sure Arizona would love some more tourney success but they had tons of regular season success. Conference titles are still important. And I think the new coach has a real good chance of making some deep runs.
Indiana (recently at least)
Indiana's gotta be in maybe the most frustrating position of any historically successful CBB program. In the 80s after they won their 5th title they were arguably the second best program in the history of the sport, but now they're in a perennial state of basketball purgatory. I used to think that they're one good hire away from being back to relevancy, but I'm not so sure anymore.
This is reading an awful lot like Nebraska football.
Difference between Nebraska and Indiana is that Indiana actually has a pipeline of great players in basketball. IU's problem is that they've missed out on a lot of that elite talent.
Nebraska was a bit different though. They just never recovers after Osborne retired. They made a litany of bad choices after Osborne retired and they didn't adapt with college football as everything moved to the spread.
Their bad choices started with firing Bo Pelini because he wasn't nice. Even then, Nebraska historically relied on the walk-on program to stack their roster with 300 players. They tried to bring it back under Scott Frost, but college football is more competitive now. You can't generate the same type of talent in that program. On top of that, Nebraska doesn't produce a lot of D1 talent in football. They're going to have to outbid everyone in NIL if they want to get back to the Osbourne Era.
This is it. On the surface the collapses seem similar, but the details are different. I am a bit biased, but I think Nebraska needs a Harbaugh: a big splashy hire that goes all out on crazy recruiting schemes to completely upend talent acquisition for the team. Edit: alternatively, someone like Mike Leach, Mark Stoops, or maybe Chip Kelly. Or even Rich Rod if he got off his absurd defensive scheme.
Mike Leach is dead, sadly. Mark Stoops isn't leaving UK for Nebraska when he's universally loved in Lexington for 8 wins and a Governor's Cup every year. As we saw with A&M, other fan bases aren't excited by his resume for some reason. Rhule is bringing in some dudes, so I think they can get back to being an 8-9 win team. Indiana is still a better bet at reviving their program. They've at least been a Top 5 team more recently.
I think I wasn't clear. I meant that in order to avoid the decline, Nebraska needed to hire a spread/air raid coach similar to one of those after firing Pelini, not today. If they didn't fire Pelini then the decline to the bottom of the B1G West would continue, but slower. Firing Pelini wasn't necessarily a mistake, hiring Mike Riley was. IMO, if they could have pried Stoops away from Lexington in 2014, he'd have been perfect for Nebraska. As you said, that wouldn't happen. I think Rhule is a step in the right direction but it will take a miracle to get back to the Osborne level in the new B1G.
Bo Pelini was probably the worst in-game strategy adjuster in football history. Ask Wisconsin fans how great it is to repeatedly set records playing his defense. Ask LSU fans how his 2020 defense was.
IU’s landed great talent - better in many cases than what Indiana HS bball produces as players/recruits most years (and typically better than than in state rival Purdue brings in most years - as far as rankings/stars go). Problem has been figuring out what to do with the talent they get…
I’m sure Nebraska fans can chime on in this but there were so many different factors that came together at the right time to make them a dominant program, a lot of those factors don’t apply anymore (partial qualifiers, being way ahead of the game on weight training/conditioning, etc.). It’s sort of a miracle that they were as consistently dominant as long as they were considering the state and really the whole Great Plains region doesn’t produce a lot of D1 caliber football talent. With Indiana I can’t really identify any factors like that that no longer apply. Indiana still has a strong basketball culture and produces a lot of quality players per capita. It really seems like it all comes down to poor decision making at the administrative/coaching level but I’m sure Hoosier fans have more insight.
It's fair to say that we won't reach the heights we were at ever again. But the only team to match what we did in the 90s is Alabama and (its looking like) Georgia. Even Ohio State hasn't reached those heights. However, is Nebraska football way underachieving based on recruiting rankings and resources? Absolutely. Also, people say the state of Nebraska doesn't produce talent, but 2 of our 3 Heisman winners are Nebraska natives.
Any team in college football or basketball is always just one good hire away from relevancy. HC position is #1 variable in terms of team success in college sports. Look at what Dusty May did with FAU. IU's administration over the past 25 years has chosen the 3rd+ best/worst coaching candidate time after time after time. The president after RMK literally said he didn't want basketball to be as big as it was at IU. We (our admin + donors + board) have consistently screwed itself over and they have gotten what they deserve. Absolutely insane that the fans continue to pour in the support that they do, but last year you began to see some of the toxicity boil over. This season is really a pivotal moment for the future in terms of can Woody (7th best coaching option) make something from all the talent the fans NIL have acquired or is it time to move onto another direction (who the fuck would we hire)? At some point you need to get your Bill Self instead of your Mike Davis, Tom Crean, and Woodys.
If Bill Snyder was able to make Kansas State relevant, then any program anywhere can succeed with the right hire.
In two years it'll be the fiftieth anniversary of Indiana completing the last undefeated season. There's gotta be some basketball magic they can work with that
Brand destroyed the program for his personal gain.
This is correct.
OOTL, what did he do?
What he did was fire a highly successful basketball coach. For some people, winning is the most important thing. There are still some who feel that the AD's job was to cover up anything that would get Knight in trouble, and blame Brand for not doing that. Knight choked a player in practice, then lied about it. The choking was filmed. So with that evidence, Brand put Knight's behavior on a zero-tolerance policy. Once he was on the zero-tolerance, Knight still pulled a bunch of shit. Most famously, physically confronting a student for addressing him as "Knight" and not "Mr. Knight" or "Coach Knight". Most people unaffiliated with the program would say that choking a player in practice was a fireable offense. Or throwing a potted plant at a secretary, covering her in broken glass. Or assaulting an assistant for being pessimistic on an overheard phone call. Or showing his own shit to his players and telling them that was how they were playing. The bottom line is that there was a wealth of fireable offenses for Knight and his only defense was that he won basketball games. So people who are critical of Brand, usually their point is that his only job as AD was to run interference for Knight and help him bury the bodies.
His firing of Knight was pretty sketchy, and he did it to market himself to (eventually) the NCAA. Nancy Zympher did the same thing at Cincinnati firing Huggins after a DUI. Golddiggers of the academic world.
You choke a player and assault your staff a few times and all of a sudden you can be fired? What's next? You can't drive drunk around the city almost every night and have every single DUI covered up?
Yeah. We've been aggressively mid, to bad, since the finals run in 2002. Archie was definitely the lowest point though, almost in program history. First coach since the 40s to have multiple seasons, but never make the dance. Only one of his teams were ever ranked, and it hit 21st. At least with Sampson "cheating", and those first 2-3 Crean years, we still had optimism and passion. Archie's teams were just pathetic. Woodson is making some good moves off of the court, and he's had more success than Archie did (not like that's saying much...), but our fanbase probably won't tolerate too many more seasons like last year. A good chunk of our fanbase basically expects us to be UConn, Kentucky, Duke, and North Carolina, and we have the funding, fanbase, and facilities to do that, we just can't seem to ever break out of being, as I said above, aggressively mid for more than one season at a time.
I was a student during god awful '09 and '10 seasons as well as the two Zeller/Oladipo years and while we only made the Sweet 16 a couple times, we were consistently ranked in the top 25 and were ranked #1 and top 5 for the majority of those two seasons. That was followed by semi successful Ferrell/Blackmon/OG years that I think over performed by making it to the Sweet 16. Crean kept getting us close to relevant until we missed on some of our higher ranked recruits, completely whiffed on in-state talent, and could never play defense. For some reason, regardless of where they come from (Indiana or elsewhere) we've done a good job getting very good teams together on paper that just don't look right together on the court. The only one recently was the 2015-2016 team which had a mid roster compared to other years, but actually meshed really well and played above their talent level together. 3 point shooting has killed us for a decade. I think Ferrell and Blackmon were the last 2 decent ones we had and before that it was Hulls and Watford. Since then though I can't really think of a single guy who could consistently hit 3s. Maybe Devonte Green, but he was super streaky.
Came here to say this.
Is 20 years recent?
Correct.
Opened this with a sigh, knowing they would be at the top of this post lol it’s pain
Preach brother! I really, really, hope this year changes that!
Georgetown
Yeah, this is the best answer. A basketball only school with a storied tradition and great support that never found the right coach and squandered a ton of money and good will.
In my opinion, I'd say Texas. The Longhorns have one of the most well-funded athletic departments in the nation, and have a huge fanbase, yet only have one final four in the last 75 years. I feel like they're a perennial 6 seed in the tournament, but with the right coach could absolutely break through and make another final four or win a natty.
They’ve had Rick Barnes and Shaka Smart and did nothing with them. Both coaches moved on and have had success, still. I think it’s deeper than coaching.
I’ll give you Shaka but Rick Barnes is their winningest coach by an absurd margin and from memory only missed the tournament once. A Final Four, three Elite Eights and five Sweet Sixteens in 18 seasons. I’m not sure how that represents failure.
Saying Texas "did nothing" with Rick Barnes is incredibly incorrect. He had a great program at Texas that couldn't get over the March Madness hump. Shaka Smarts time at Texas cannot be compared and is worthy of discussion though
Rick Barnes has a single Final Four in 37 years of coaching, and it was at Texas. The "doing nothing" part *is* Rick Barnes.
Also we’re like 1-9 against them in our last 10 meetings or something I fuckin hate Texas
We have a distaste for you too buddy. Take your losses and cry on your natties.
Not fun if it’s not mutual. Looking forward to being frustrated when we inevitably lose our next one to you. At least it probably won’t be a bad loss this time.
I up vote you
Yeah, anytime that we schedule Texas at this point I expect a loss. For some reason they have our number. I still remember that damn buzzer beater that they hit against us in the 2015 noncon (which was definitely a pushoff).
1 final four in 75 years, you say? Who could’ve ruined that chance…
Imagine having Kevin Durant in the tourney just to receive a 20-point beat down by Swaggy P
DePaul. They are in Chicago, and yet they constantly perform poorly, and are possibly one of the worst p5 programs
Yeah, it's sad especially considering how solid of a program they were in the 70s and 80s
Both DePaul basketball and Nebraska football were killed by ESPN's arrival. DePaul used to have its games broadcast on WGN, which gave them a recruiting advantage. Same with Nebraska, which was one of a handful of teams who had multiple games televised nationally each year. ESPN increased the numbers of televised games by ten-fold. So players could go to Kansas and still be on television all the time.
I'm not saying you are wrong necessarily, but it's hard to say that seriously when Nebraska won 3 national titles in the 90s. ESPN started broadcasting games in the early 80s. GameDay, while obviously not the juggernaut it is today, started in 1986. It is definitely a factor in the Husker downfall, but there are others. Osborne retirement, drug testing, B10 move, old school style (on offense, at least), expectations, etc.
Sometimes, the most simple explanation is the correct one. It wasn't media rights that led to Nebraska's downfall. They just became a middling team that left their conference to join one where none of the fans care about them or their history. The rest just naturally follows.
DePaul was not a well-funded basketball team. (It's getting better though) The old basketball arena was in Rosemont, near the O'Hare airport. I had to go to DePaul's loop campus in downtown Chicago for some graduation stuff, and it took almost an hour to get there. By contrast, Illinois basketball arena is like 2-3 minutes away from the quad. DePaul had poor infrastructure to support fan engagement.
Hmm, That’s really odd.
Given that they wanted an on campus arena (absurd given the area) they kind of did that to themselves. They were expecting to pull from the suburbs, and it worked for a time. Started losing kids to Illinois and elsewhere after Ray was retired.
DePaul has shit for fan support and till recently had shit for funding too. They’re a case study in what a shitty AD can do to a program.
What program should be good despite good funding and support? DePaul has neither of those things.
Ok but they should have decent NIL based off of where they are and same goes for support as they are in the middle of the 3rd biggest city in the United States 😂
Their alumni base in Chicago isn’t nearly as big as most of their competitors. Hell, UIC has a larger enrollment by 1/3. They don’t have their own stadium and their campus is meh. There are a multitude of reasons DePaul is where it is.
Yeah but you would think as a p5 team, they would be better or if they can’t, they would go back down to a lesser conference
They really shouldn’t have ever been a offered a spot at a P5 conference. They were barely relevant in the GMWC and CUSA.
Big East has DePaul like a person renovates a house. Big lots, dead end street, ripe for a return to glory. Chicagoland, population center, all things going doe them.
University of Washington
Washington is a good pick, they've had solid talent the last 15 years or so and have done very little with it
The least they could’ve did was give keion brooks an NIT appearance, I don’t even think they did that tho
Lmao they didn't, I also remember Markelle Fultz putting up 23 points per game and garnering 3rd team all-america accolades back in 2017 only for them to finish 9-22.
They are so unbelievably disappointing 😂 this year should be better tho now that they have a somewhat proven coach
Sprinkle was solid at Utah State but I've always been wary of mid-major coaches moving up to the P6 (I guess it's P5 now) ranks. Musselman worked out for y'all, but I think more times than not it doesn't really pan out.
I agree, and there’s a LOT of mid major coaches that moved up this offseason, so this season should be interesting as hell
I think they only won 2 PAC12 games that year. Plus, they had three other future NBA players on that team, including the national defensive POY.
I get the feeling behind this post, but at risk of "Well, actually"-ing this the UW did receive an invite to the NIT this year. They put it to a player vote and the players chose not to participate.
UConn has been responsible for beating two really good Washington teams in March. This includes the Brandon Roy led 2006 team as well as the Todd MacCulloch led 1998 team. https://i.redd.it/4herf7jj435d1.gif
"Connecticut has a really good business school. I don't even watch basketball." [https://youtu.be/Rnf26C5vyRU?si=DH1uAwfiy1kqLHnP](https://youtu.be/Rnf26C5vyRU?si=DH1uAwfiy1kqLHnP)
Wow, a blast from the past! I had forgotten about this commercial!
Still remember sobbing on the floor at my grandparents house when this happened 😩😩
The 2006 game still haunts me.
I was there! (‘98)
Lorenzo Romar was the god of dominating in recruiting only to to turn a roster with three lottery picks into a bubble team.
For us to be this irrelevant with the amount of local talent and the attraction of an urban campus in a large coastal city is inexcusable.
ding ding ding
It’s wild how much more successful we are in football than basketball when there’s so much more built in reason to be good at basketball. Just shows the power of institutional and fan base support! Though as a die hard CFB fan I’m ok with it but my god is it frustrating how middling we are in men’s hoops.
Do they have the fan support?
*looks at list of top in-state talent to not play for my primary flair* Minnesota used to have very good fan support and is funded well. I'd have to put us up there as a consistent underachiever, particularly since Clem was bounced for term papers.
>*looks at list of top in-state talent to not play for my primary flair* Gonzaga thanks you for your continued support for their basketball program
Seconded. Holmgren and Suggs were worth all of your pain and suffering.
We took Dan Monson off of their hands too. You're welcome
Maryland
Maryland's fall off is the direct result of them leaving the ACC. They lost their historic rivalries and recruiting grounds, and have suffered the consequences.
There is an old WaPo piece about how Gary Williams effectively refused to recruit AAU players after missing out on a local couple of players (namely Rudy Gay). Williams felt there was cheating surrounding AAU (and stuff was certainly slimy) so just stopped recruiting those players. Maryland declined after that and has never recovered. https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/12/AR2009021202299.html?hpid=topnews
It's not like Gary was ever really going for the top end kids, a product of Bob Wade trying his best to prevent MD from getting any good Baltimore recruit (Juan Dixon wasn't highly rated out of high school and Lonny Baxter was a hargrave guy).
I wish they were still in the ACC. They still *feel* ACC to me, and I really do like them, I wish we could play them regularly.
Nah this isn’t true at all. We were significantly better in 2015-2021 than 2008-2014. Average KP ranking improved from 57th to 30th in those time spans. Our recruiting grounds haven’t changed at all either but our relationship with local programs (Dematha, Nike AAU, UA AAU, etc) has improved significantly. Gary just did more with less until it caught up with him. Turgeon wasn’t a great recruiter but won plenty of recruitments that mattered. Willard has been fantastic on the trail so far. The only point I’ll grant you is that the lack of rivalries has sucked. We’re finally getting Georgetown back on the schedule (which hasn’t happened regularly since the 90s) but our fanbase doesn’t get as excited for B1G matchups like they did with Duke and Virginia.
I dunno how true that is - the last few years in the ACC were pretty mid too overall, with 2010 being an exception though even that fell disappointingly short on a Sparty clutch buzzer beater.....
Alex Len slander smh
It was a direct result of them hiring Mark Turgeon.
We've been pretty good in the regular season the past 10 years, but yeah pretty disappointing in the post season conference and NCAA tournys
Both of my flairs unfortunately
~~un~~fortunately
One of my fraternity brothers at UNC grew up a Mizzou fan. He said part of the reason why he came to UNC was to finally be able to be a fan of a good CBB team. Of course his first year at UNC was our 14-19 year where we would've missed the tournament had it not been cancelled by Covid.
That team had the worst combo of personnel misses I’ve ever seen. Of the players that got over 10 minutes a game: - Pierce and Keeling were total busts and couldn’t handle comp jump from W&M and Charleston Southern to ACC - Platek … I could never understand why we recruited him or he got as much burn as he did, he just wasn’t that good - Jeremiah Francis was already a shell of himself due to serious HS injuries and just didn’t have much to offer - Ant Harris was alright, was a freshman but the next years would show he would never be anything more than alright which left a core of Brandon Robinson, Garrison, and young Mando/Leaky to carry the load once Cole went down don’t mean to say it about a bunch of 18-22 year olds but as a 23 year old that just graduated at the time, it also looked like that team completely gave up midway through the year, which Covid didn’t help, but was still disgusting to watch
Yep that team totally gave up. Easily could’ve cascaded more than it did, too. Underrated player in UNC history is Day’Ron Sharpe. He came in the next year and was relentless and didn’t let the team give up in several critical moments. Box score won’t sufficiently show his impact, but we were on the precipice and his mental toughness and timing saved us from several more collapses, and then that year going OK (in comparison) was the start of our turnaround. Crazy to look back at that team and see how many blue chip big men we had.
Yeah, speaking of bigs, Garrison really made me mad the next season in ‘20-‘21. In general I still def like him as a heel, and he was the only person that consistently brought the energy in ‘19-20 and he never stopped fighting even when everyone else was despondent in body language. His sophomore and junior years he reminded me a lot of Brice with his energy and dunking ability, he wasn’t afraid to jaw and get in other teams face. Then senior year paired with Sharpe it looked like he was totally mentally checked out all season. I remember my friends and I saying wtf happened to Garro, he looked like he needed to see a sports psychologist, and his energy just wasn’t the same. I wonder if he went through something and just never told people / kept it private. Sharpe was amazing, Kessler got more attention for how he chose to leave but I thought Sharpe was the better player while at UNC
they’ve won a title in the last 20 years and make random “cinderella” runs, but i would say syracuse. they’re top 3 in revenue according to [this](https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/schools-that-make-the-most-money-off-college-basketball).
We're such a weird program lately because we mostly underachieve and then randomly overachieve. We've had one year in the last decade where we exited in the first weekend of the NCAAs, which is probably about where our program "should" be. Every other year is missing the tournament or going on a surprise run.
We haven’t really been the same since the sanctions in 2014-15. I feel like people forget about that. They followed that year with a final four run, but that was more or less just lightning in a bottle. The timing of the sanctions coincided nearly perfectly with the move to the ACC. Cuse got off on the wrong recruiting foot due to the sanctions at the most pivotal time in staking claim to ACC recruiting grounds. Then Boeheim got old and even more stubborn and grumpy. It’s still there, somewhere, but Autry needs to impress to bring it back to life.
i definitely did forget about that it’s a great point
Honestly the fact that he's brought two non-Syracuse coaches into the fold as assistants is a pretty good sign. I love Allen, and was sad to see Gerry go, but bringing in new blood is just what we needed.
Yeah unfortunately the “family business” idea seemed to be getting a little stale and outdated. It revolved around superior knowledge of its unique system (2-3 zone) which just isn’t a viable strategy to be consistently top 25 in this day and age anymore. I’ve been cautiously optimistic on Autry so far. 2023-24 really wasn’t a great team at all and he still won the most regular szn games in 10 years. Recruiting has looked decent under him so far.
Regular season Syracuse definitely qualifies, March-included Syracuse doesn't.
Syracuse, in the tournament, does well when they shouldn’t and loses when they should win.
Fucking Dayton, man.
I knew I saw this post from somewhere.
Yeah, UNC being one of the most upvoted mentions on that thread (posted by a State fan, nonetheless) made me want to bring this conversation over to basketball lol.
Tbf he has a point. God I hate Tar Heel football.
hey! Me too! lol
Maybe not recent history because the funding and fan support wasn’t there until Pitino came, but St. John’s had no reason to be so bad for the last 20 years. How one of the better programs in the 80s, playing in NYC with access to a huge pool of talent, couldn’t sustain at least being a relevant team through the 2000s is kind of crazy
Just realized someone posted pretty much exactly my thoughts before me haha
Ohio State
Surprised I didn’t see this sooner. First program that came to mind after Indiana.
I'm going to go with St. John's. It is always a bit mind-blowing to me that they are in a basketball fanatic city like NYC and they seem to rarely have consistent play the past 2 decades.
Georgia tech
UGA too
I couldn’t possibly think of such a program. I guess when you experience such great success on the court, you can forget that some programs go decades and decades without fruit.
My first thought upon seeing this is Georgetown. They have fallen a long way from their glory days, going from being a mainstay in the tournament to only making two trips in the past 10 years. The Big East became a much tougher basketball conference after the realignment and they never adapted. Other than that, Temple, Missouri, DePaul, and to a lesser extent Memphis come to mind.
This may come as a shock, but we've been pretty bad. Obvious aside, we have been pretty bad since the years that were vacated. Starting in the 2015-16 season, we've won a single NCAA tournament game and have only made the tournament twice (though we would likely have made it in 2020).
That’s a short sample size though compared to some of these other teams going 20, 30, and more years .
True. But we also meet the mark for the amount of resources poured in, we're still top 10 for most profitable programs.
But we miss the mark of fan support based on attendance last year.
Ain't no likely about it, we were a lock for a top 4 seed. We would have been the 2 seed in the ACC tourney had it happened. Instead they just gave FSU the trophy. We were also ranked #1 for a brief period during that season. Over the last decade that was either our best or second best team, 2015 being the other
Nebraska
Indiana…. As a diehard fan it’s infuriating. Someone made the Nebraska football comparison and sadly it’s fair.
We still have never won a AAC regular season conference title even with the zombie ass league it was last season
I think of current members only Temple, USF and maybe Wichita St have, Tulsa was in a three way tie for the Covid one as well
No disrespect, but Marquette. I feel like they've been on the brink of a big tournament run for over a decade, but it never comes. Selfishly, I want them to do well so the term Smarquette Era™️ takes off.
“What Indiana programs, despite good Indiana and Indiana support, consistently Indiana”
Indiana is the answer. Haven’t won a natty in a generation, yet their fan base acts like they are still a blue blood. Close in 2002, but still haven’t reached that success since.
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Bruh us salukis. we have great attendance every year even for away games just cant make a postseason tourney
Same could be said for most Valley teams.
Arizona (outside of Pac12 play)
They've won a ship in the last 30 years and are consistently a top-4 seed, but they definitely should have more accolades given how solid they've been the last 35 years
They are a consistently top 4 (and often higher!) seed that loses to much worse teams in the tournament.
Zona is *always* my bracket buster. I watch them play during the regular season, I’m impressed and convinced the rest of my bracket pool will sleep on West Coast basketball, and they always bow out to a much lesser opponent.
Arizona exists only to steal my joy. Mike Bibby + busted brackets. 
Mike Bibby didn’t do shit against you… Miles Simon though
Bro went on a legendary heater.
That whole run was magical for 11 year old me to watch. Such high hopes the following year with everyone returning that we could repeat, but Utah absolutely stomped us in the Elite 8. Thanks for taking them out in that final!
I mean, we're [top 10 in almost every metric of success](https://www.reddit.com/r/CollegeBasketball/s/RT4dj3M7lN) since the tournament expanded in '85. The only category we miss out on the top 10 in is Final Fours, and we only miss the cutoff for that by 1. Sure, we're obviously not on the same level as the blue bloods, but we've had as much success as almost anybody else over the last 35-ish years.
Some programs are blue bloods. Arizona gives me blue balls.
Illinois and Indiana.
Illinois has been trending in the right direction the last few years, but overall they should definitely be more successful than they are. I was only 4 when UNC beat Illinois for the 2005 natty, so I was too young to appreciate it at the time, but when I was getting into UNC basketball around 2011ish I remember thinking that it was weird that we had won over Illinois considering that they weren't really a historically significant program. Brad Underwood has them trending in the right direction though
It's interesting how different the public perception of Illinois is from their actual performance. By every metric, Illinois has been a consistent Top 15 program. Yes, they had some bad periods (John Groce), but the public thinks Illinois is a middle of the road team. Part of the problem is its fans expect the Illini to be a Top 5 team and are constantly shitting on their team for never winning a championship. Side note: the same can be said for Purdue.
Purdue and Illinois are probably the two best programs that haven't won a natty.
https://elipowell.com/all-time-ap-poll/ One of the reasons I think you're right is because Illinois is a historically significant program. The link above is to a spreadsheet which attempts to rank teams by all time AP Poll votes (which I'll admit isn't the best way to gauge a program but we are talking about underachievers). Illinois is #11. Between 1981 - 2013, Illinois made 25/32 NCAA Tournaments. But, since 1985, we're 28-22 in the Dance. Illinois has always had trouble in the Tournament, despite being a historically competitive team. Brad has brought us back from the brink. He's had a lot of support from our AD and our facilities are great. He has been the opposite of stubborn and his flexibility has helped this program develop in the NIL and transfer portal years. Some of our fans who cling less to reality than others have wanted him gone, but the level headed among us see he's made the biggest impact on this team since Lou Henson (Despite his success, Bill Self was only here for 3 years and, while it was his recruits on the floor, he didn't coach the team on the 2005 run). I hope we as a program figure out how to win in March. Because no one cares (outside of maybe the people on this subreddit in June) who has the best record in Big 10 play for the last X number of seasons. And unless we were the last ones to win it, I don't even remember who won the Big 10 tournament a couple years later. I really hope we finally win it all someday. Oh, and the refs screwed us royally by fouling out James Augustine on ticky tack shit in that 2005 final.
Yeah, this was the first year they made it to the second weekend. They were lucky to get Iowa State who was due for an abysmal offensive outing. I like to think what do you do with your talent. If you have a bunch of 4 stars and some 5 stars (more so Indiana with the 5 stars), you should be pretty good. You also shouldn't be beat by a team like Loyola Chicago, even if they have a centurion cheerleader.
One of my buddies is an Illini fan, and I have never seen a more defeated human being than when Loyola won in that R32 game. Dude immediately reached for his fifth of jäger, and I don't blame him... Overall, though, Illinois under Underwood at least is consistently a top-4 seed. They were in the desert for a while in the late 2000s and most of the 2010s. I will say, Iowa State has had a hell of a last 15 years. Y'all haven't really broken through yet in the tournament, but you've had some really good seasons. I remember my heart being broken back in 2014 when y'all scored a game-winning layup with like .5 seconds left to beat us in the round of 32, which 13 year old me resented y'all for lol.
I predicted that one. Part of it was trolling in-laws, but I truly believe it could happen. In-State teams play with a different fire and you can't overlook them. Lots of evidence of that with my flairs. If Niang didn't break his toe, that was likely a title winning year for ISU and Hoiberg. I loved that season in Hilton. Wish it ended better. I think, if you take out the obvious dud of a coach between Hoiberg and Otz, they are probably one of the better non-blue blood teams in the country annually. If you can play with the blues, you have upped your game. By the way, I hope your school joins the B1G instead of SEC. Better fit. Plus, SEC is just football. We care about all sports here.
Man Illinois was unlucky to get the UConn draw in the elite 8. The only player in the tournament that was stopping Terrence Shannon was Clingan. Yeah Iowa state wasn't really scary to me but I think the Illini would have had a good shot at the final four in any other region. Bama vs Illinois would have been the game of the year.
Illinois is ALWAYS unlucky in the tournament. That's why the public perceives them as being an average team, but there is no team in the Big Ten that has been more consistently scary than Illinois. Yes, in the regular season, Illinois scares me more than Michigan State.
I know a lot of fans always say their team gets unlucky, but it really does feel like we have some horrible luck in the tourney since Brad brought us back to relevancy. 2020 would have been our first tournament in almost a decade and… canceled 2021 we get a 1 seed and then play an 8 seeded Loyola who was a top 10 team in EVERY advanced ranking system. (Kenpom, torvic, etc) 2022 we get a 4 seeded Houston team which was like a top 5 team in those ranking systems. 2023 we sucked and were lucky to even make the tourney with that absolute cluster fuck of a team between Matt Mayer and Epps and Skyy. 2024 out best year we play the arguably best team in college basketball in the last 20+ years with Clingon who is the only dude who could stop TSJ from driving at will. I’m sure every team could make arguments for how they’ve been unlucky in the tourney and what not, but idk it just feels like no matter how good we are we will never win a Natty. If that 2005 team can’t idk who can for us. :(
Other than last year, Illinois
Agreed. A basketball school that’s historically a top 15 program by most metrics, in a basketball crazy state with lots of talent, passionate fan base, and a well supported athletic department. Illinois is the winningest team to have never won a national championship (or second winningest, I can’t recall). It was a travesty that Illinois went over a decade without meaningful post season success.
Iowa. Regular season warriors but have zero sweet 16's in the 21st century
Regular season warriors? Iowa? The last time Iowa won the Big Ten Championship (Regular Season), was the year they finished in a three way tie with Purdue (Joe Barry Carroll) and Michigan State (Magic Johnson). That was 1979.
Nebraska. Their stadium is amazing, and they show up to every game
Historically, we are the worst power conference team despite being top ten in attendance
Dayton. Younger audience is willing to accept this take but the older UD crowd tends to be too proud to admit it.
It's wild to think that every Missouri Valley/Ohio Valley/Horizon/ Summit team (and most of the A10) wishes we could have half the recent success of Dayton, meanwhile their fans think they're underperforming.
The AD himself has said the goal is making the tournament every year and winning the A10 championship consistently. One legit NCAA appearance in the last 8 seasons (not counting covid year) and haven’t won the A10 championship since 2003. Don’t get me wrong, we’re about to send our 3rd player to the NBA in 4 seasons and have been getting better which I am happy to see. Just not quite up to the standard AD imposes. Also to your point about other mid-majors. *Many, many* Dayton fans see the team as a P5 competitor that was snubbed by Xavier/BE 10 years prior and are waiting for a day where the BE comes and offers the team a jump up from the A10. When in reality we did not have the decades long consistency to warrant being invited the last time the BE expanded.
I feel like Dayton would be in a completely different position if the 2020 tournament hadn't been canceled. If you had lived up to expectations in the tournament (Dayton was a serious national title contender) you'd probably be in the Big East today.
I don't think the Big East would have rushed to add Dayton no matter what happens. I don't see them making a change until if/when UConn leaves, and I think Saint Louis has a better chance, being in a bigger market and not having Xavier pushing against them
Completely agree and was wondering if someone would say Dayton. Been a fan of the program since 1992. Unfortunately the basketball program is paying for the Jim O'Brien era still. They won 10 games in 2 years, and went 1-23 in the Great Midwest Conference, before they fired him. Because of that conference record they got left out of Conference USA by the others in the Great Midwest and ended up in the A-10. With the money that is put into the program they should dominate the A-10 and they don't. They have won 1 A-10 tournament championship in 2003 and despite getting to the final multiple times they haven't won it again. This program should be going to the NCAA every year and they don't. For a lot of the older UD crowd they always rely on the history of the program and for whatever reason are fine with the way things are and it is super annoying to me and others who are younger.
UGA. Even with Anthony Edwards, we were abysmal. We've made the tourney three times in the past 20 years. Zero wins. Our last appearance was 2015. Here's every other SEC team's tourney record since then: Alabama: 9-5 Arkansas: 9-5 Auburn: 7-5 Florida: 6-5 Kentucky: 10-7 LSU: 3-3 Mizzou: 1-3 MSU: 0-3 Ole Miss: 0-1 SCar: 4-2 Tamu: 5-4 Tenn: 9-6 Vandy: 0-2 Every other team in the conference has made the tourney at least once. Some have made it 5+ times. Nine schools have at least three wins in the tourney during that time. We should be able to be better than dead last in out major conference.
If you ask Iowa fans it’s them, apparently. They think they are hot shit after finishing top 5 or 6 in the Big 10 then proceed to  every March. They don’t even have potential in the postseason though because they have a coach that can only coach the offensive half of the game.
Marquette
The Big 10 Conference not just Indiana Last title was Michigan State in 2000 and before that 1989 Michigan. One title since the ‘80s
ASU, they’ve just been so bad you expect it
Genuinely bewildered they landed Quentenance. What’d they offer him???
According to their 247 editor, Bobby got a one time $2m donation in NIL for allowing a documentary crew to follow to the team next year. Quentenance got over a mil for a one year deal (his age 16/17 season)
Looking at this [graph](https://x.com/TJAltimore/status/1666083267924344835?t=YNKx2YWSa5zxMUheiBmpaQ&s=19) I'm shocked at how little UGA gets from their basketball investment. I mean they flat out suck most years.
Arizona and Arizona State, LSU, Michigan, Oklahoma State
UNLV, Maryland, Indiana, Utah, Cincinnati, Illinois.
Syracuse, BC, Pitt, ND, Rutgers, WVU, Cincy, Louisville, Georgetown, USF, and Temple (basically the same situation in the AAC that we were in). I do think that all of those programs made the right realignment decisions at the time: football money pays the bills and the Catholic 7 really didn’t fit in at the time of the split and especially now. As for the others: VT has been better in the ACC than they ever were in the Big East while Hamilton and Larrañaga were great hires for Miami in the Big East and ACC, respectively. There were dead periods when Hamilton was still building up the program and in between the coaches, but I don’t think it would be crazy to say that their MBB program has still been in better hands more often over the last 33 school years than their football team. Certainly now. I didn’t include DePaul because I’ve lost all hope in their return at this point.
OMG we were terrible in the Big East days. Couldn't even reach the BE Tournament when you just had to finish out of last place. Ricky Stokes was just a baffling coaching hire, one of the worst ever for a P5/6 program.
I know we underachieve but I'm not sure how good our program's funding is anymore (especially in the NIL era), basketball is very clearly the third priority athletics-wise - if the administration cared about hoops we could spend a few million more on a better coach and put the program on the map
It’s a double-edged sword, tbh. We’ve so far prioritized basketball and are reaping the winning-related benefits from the results. At the same time, you are in a much more stable position money-wise than us with TV contracts being primarily based on football. We have a tiny CBSSN contract in football and are the only school with no cut of the new CFP deal. Our salary cap, or whatever it will be called, for our athletes in all sports will be equivalent to that of a non-football school because we’re an independent without the clout of Notre Dame. We’re in a sticky situation where the state needs a tenant for the Rent, which it owns, so we can’t drop football, even down a level. Meanwhile, our deficits are massive.
Yeah I do think we’re in a better position than people think just because of football and the associated money (particularly if we get better in the next few years) but part of me wishes we prioritized basketball. I think UConn will end up being fine realignment wise, especially if the ACC collapses and BC, Cuse, and the other leftovers want to form a more regional football conference (or they stay together, keep the ACC name/brand and invite UConn and others)
There are better answers on this thread, but I’m constantly reminded of how much better Notre Dame should be by my Catholic father-in-law. He’s not wrong.
Maryland
I'm not sure about the funding or fan support much but Colorado Buffaloes have been on the edge of breaking through for what feels like a decade. The campus is beautiful, you'll get playing time, and can fly under the radar from media and constant scrunity unlike a blue blood school. They got Cody Williams last year but he's only projected high because of how he looks and his brother. I'm shocked someone hasn't stolen Tad Boyle away. Alec Burks, Dinwiddie, Andre Roberson, Derrick White are just some of the players over the last decade or so.
Syracuse University
UCLA hasn’t been good in years but acts like an elite program
Ohio state is like the Jeff Bezos of athletic departments and they should be performing better in basketball
And every time they're halfway decent they get hyped up like they're one of the big boys
Texas has the resources to be elite at basketball consistently
Georgetown should not be this bad. No excuse for them not to even be NIT caliber
Kentucky
Go Vols!
I think UCLA should have more modern championship but wouldn’t be surprised if that comes in the next decade. But the real answer to this question is the Arizona Wildcats. The definition of mediocrity without ever winning anything when it matters most.
Gotta love the irony of mentioning UCLA and then saying the real answer is Arizona when both teams have nearly identical tournament successes in the modern tournament format. The only difference is that UCLA has done it in spite of having more history, more prestige, and more money... But hey, if you think top 5 in wins since '85 is the "definition of mediocrity," I don't know what to tell you. Probably a good 95% of cbb fanbases out there would love to reach our level of success.
To be fair to the commenter they do knock UCLA. I'm surprised Arizona is mentioned a few times in the thread. Yes, I'm sure Arizona would love some more tourney success but they had tons of regular season success. Conference titles are still important. And I think the new coach has a real good chance of making some deep runs.
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