For those who may not know, last week ESPN released “Prestige Rankings” for NCAA College Basketball teams from 1985 to the present. After reading through their methodology and scoring system, I decided to come up with my own rankings that I believe are more indicative of a team’s prestige.
For starters, I am working on making the rankings go back to 1985, but for now I have only done back to 2000. So these will be rankings for this decade only. I like the idea of having more recent rankings though, because many programs do change significantly over an extended period of time.
Now for the scoring system; I decided to only base my rankings off of success in the NCAA tournament. This is because I believe the "Big Dance" is the ultimate goal for every Division I college basketball team, and since it includes all divisions, the tournament really encompasses everyone.
The scores that I give the teams for each year is essentially just their rank for how they finished in the tournament. For example, the champion is ranked No. 1 and the play-in game loser is ranked No. 65.
However, since I was assigning no score to teams that did not qualify for the tournament, I needed to make higher scores more valuable. So I inverted the rankings; the champion receives a score of 65 and the play-in game loser receives a score of one.
Also, everyone losing in the same round receives the same score. There is no discrepancy based on seed. Here is the detailed scoring breakdown:
Champion: 65 points
Runner-Up: 64 points
Lose in Final Four: 62 points
Lose in Elite Eight: 58 points
Lose in Sweet Sixteen: 50 points
Lose in Second Round: 34 points
32 comments Last one added 10 months ago — Leave a Comment
Johnny Da Bone 11 months ago
I am no Florida fan, but if you are ranking teams going back to 2000, they have to be number 1.
Would anyone say that Florida is not the team of this decade?
Most of the schools on your list judge themselves on whether or not they make the tournament. If you add more emphasis in your scoring for teams that simply get a “bid,” I think the list will look better.
Butler ahead of a power school like Villanova… come on.
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Brett Lissenden 11 months ago
If you look at just tourney results, these rankings are very accurate. Butler has done better than Villanova in the tourney this decade. Florida is certainly not the team of the decade. They were never a powerhouse besides the two championship years. And by powerhouse I mean the likes of Duke, Kentucky, Kansas, UNC. Duke made at least the sweet sixteen every year except for the last two.
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Tyler Jones 11 months ago
Interesting. ESPN loves their lists don't they. they always raise a lot of eyebrows.
Good list of your own. Liked to see the other years in with it though. Kind of takes away from the comparison.
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Brett Lissenden 11 months ago
you'll definitely have to check back when I have the completed list. I'll do a lot more analysis then.
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Tyler Jones 11 months ago
Just looked at that list. If wasn't for the the Stan Heath era, Arkansas might be in that top 10. Plus, they shoulda had us ahead of Memphis considering the tourney history and that they haven't won a title.
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Brett Lissenden 11 months ago
Yeah Arkansas should jump a lot in the rankings once I go back more years. They were always a very strong team in the Nolan Richardson days.
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VUhoops.com VUhoops.com 11 months ago
Villanova is one of 5 schools to be in the Sweet 16 at least 3 of the last 4 years (including the Elite 8). Butler has been to the Sweet 16 twice.
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Brett Lissenden 11 months ago
I will analyze this comparison more when I get home from work -- I'm guessing Butler had more years qualifying for the tournament or making the second round than Villanova did. There is a big point difference from losing in the first round to losing in the second round because twice as many teams are eliminated in the first round.
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Brett Lissenden 11 months ago
Butler has 2 sweet sixteens, 2 second round exits, 1 first round exit, and 4 years of not qualifying. Villanova has 1 elite eight, 2 sweet sixteens, 1 first round exit, and 5 years of not qualifying. They are certainly very close, as the rankings indicate, but I don't see how you can say Villanova should be higher. It's basically weighing Villanova's Elite Eight against Butler's two second round exits. Since the biggest jump in points is from first round exit to second round exit (most teams are eliminated here), I find the result to be reasonable. Your comment is very misleading because these rankings are for the whole decade, and Villanova made the tournament for the first year in this decade in 2005. Thanks for comment though, if you have a suggestion for the points system (that has some mathematical basis) I would definitely consider it.
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Johnny Da Bone 11 months ago
Playing in the final game (and winning twice) in 3 of the 9 years you are considering sounds like a powerhouse to me. What more do you want?
Adjustments needed.
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Brett Lissenden 11 months ago
I don't have the data with me so I can provide further analysis later... but for now I can say that I think our disagreement lies in the fact that I do not heavily reward a team for winning the championship. The winner receives one more points than the second place team, who receives only two more points than the other two semifinalists. This may not be indicative of press coverage a team receives, but it is indicative of rank within the tournament.
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Brett Lissenden 11 months ago
Florida was runner-up in 2000, lost in the first or second round for each of the next five years, won the championship two years in a row, and then failed to qualify for the tournament last year. Compare this to the top ranked team, Duke, who won the championship in 2001, had 1 final four, 5 sweet sixteens, only one second round loss, only one first round loss, and made the tourney every year. I think the purpose of any rankings over a period of time are consistency, and Duke has been more consistent by far. In addition, like I mentioned before, these rankings are based on the place a team finishes in the tournament and don't count championships or final fours as bonuses or anything like that. Maybe the title of Prestige Rankings is a little misleading, but I wanted to compare to ESPN.
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Jameson Fleming 11 months ago
I like the way you did these, but I did like how ESPN's came out minus having some minor conference teams be way too high because of the conference element to their formula. I thought their top 10, and generally their top 25 and 30 were pretty accurate.
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Brett Lissenden 11 months ago
Thanks. After I'm done we'll see how well the top teams compare with both rankings. I like the idea of setting a ranking that makes sense in stone rathen than making up numbers based on your someone(s)' perception (like ESPN)
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Buckeyes Fan in Happy Valley 11 months ago
I know you hate Duke....so way to stay objective and tell it like it is..great article and keep em coming, ESPN has nothing on you
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Jameson Fleming 11 months ago
Yeah I don't know if like just tournament success as the ranking system. I'd like the fact that ESPN took in an account losing seasons and certain number of wins. I think a mix of a stronger emphasis on tournament performance and number of down years is the best way to go, at that point its just assigning a point value to each.
Me personally, I find a team more prestigious if they have one national title and maybe two deeps in the tournament but are good every year and are going to make the tournament say 22 out of 25 times instead of a team with say seven or eight deep runs and only 13-16 tournament years, but that's just me. In the end I think people remember the team who was consistently there like a Kentucky, Kansas, or Arizona rather than a Texas, Illinois, or Oklahoma who's there for a couple years and then off the map couple years and so on.
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Brett Lissenden 11 months ago
you have a valid point. I disagree though. I think tournament success really encompasses everything and is a much simpler method. To smaller conference teams or weaker large conference teams, success is just making the tournament -- so they are rewarded if they make it but not nearly as many points as a big time team. If you go by win total the smaller conference team could have more wins because they play weaker opponents. There is credit given for making the tournament but the big points are given for winning in the tournament. The only change I have been considering deeply is to further penalize teams that don't make the tournament. The easiest way to do this is to shift all points up by a certain number, but I don't know how to really keep these as accurate rankings without ranking every single team every year. In reality though, I think the rankings are turning out very accurate so far. I am willing to listen to suggestions though, but I'd rather still only look at tournament success.
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Joe G 11 months ago
The big problem I had with ESPN's rankings was the high rating of the University of Michigan. They didn't lose any points for having to vacate all those victories from the Chris Webber era. They haven't made an official tournament appearance since before I was old enough to dribble a basketball, yet they were right behind a team who recently repeated as champions.
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Brett Lissenden 11 months ago
I think the effects of the vacated victories for Michigan is seen in the fact that they haven't made the NCAA tourney in so long, just as you said. Even though the wins can be effectively taken away, they still happened. Again, I think the tournament success covers everything because if a team is banned from the tournament then they obviously can't get any points for those years.
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Chris Kelly 11 months ago
A score system is pointless in deciding arguments like this. It is truly just a matter of opinion.
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Brett Lissenden 11 months ago
Who's opinion? Maybe if you are talking about prospective recruits.... That's not the purpose of this article though. A ranking system of opinions is meaningless except to the person whose opinions they are. A scoring system provides truly unbiased results that reflect the results of the calculations. The formula is the only thing that could be misleading, and I have spelled out for you the formula I used.
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Chris Kelly 11 months ago
The only reason I saw it is pointless is due to the fact that one of College Basketball's most prestigious programs is no.23 (Louisville). I agree it then is the formula that is pointless as it seems to be somewhat misleading.
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Brett Lissenden 11 months ago
Remember this is only for 2000-2008. I will be posting the results back to 85 in a week or so (I'm going on vacation and won't have computer access).
This is why Louisville is so low:
failed to make tournament in 2001, 2002, 2006
lost in first round in 2000, 2004
lost in second round in 2003, 2007
one final four appearance and one elite 8 appearance
Still think they should be higher? Louisville does jump a lot in the rankings when I go back more years. This decade they have not been an elite team, just a good team. If you disagree I would love to hear some evidence.
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Chris Kelly 11 months ago
Oh my bad I had not realized this is from 2000-2008. I had it confused with the various rankings that started in 1985. Terribly sorry for my ignorant comments when I was unaware of what I was talking about.
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Brett Lissenden 11 months ago
perfectly fine. Sorry that I replied to your comment when you had posted another - my browser did not refresh. As I said, in a week to two weeks I will be posting rankings back to 1985 and comparing to ESPN's so I would encourage you to check back. Louisville does move up quite a bit, but I am not quite ready to post everything so you will have to check back.
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Chris Kelly 11 months ago
You make a point for the last eight years. This season should see them move up, and just to make it clear I am not a Louisville booster so I am not being biased (just thought i'd mention that).
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Samuel Smith 11 months ago
Good to see Duke fans have something to cheer about
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Brett Lissenden 11 months ago
Duke basketball is second on my list of hated sports teams only behind the Yankees so it certainly gives me no pleasure to reveal them as top team. It is however undeniable that Duke has been the best and most consistent team by any measure in modern college basketball.
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Samuel Smith 11 months ago
yeah i agree they have been pretty dominant until recent years. The deserve to be number 1 i know but i love taken shots at Duke. good write!
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Ryan Marinelli 10 months ago
its great to see proof to the illinois haters that the illinois basketball program has been one of the most successful in the country in the past decade
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. 10 months ago
UNC can endure the Matt Doherty era and still come out in the top 5... I like to see that.
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Brett Lissenden 10 months ago
Yep. Actually if they would have made the tournament in 2002 and 2003 and just won their first round games each year they would be ahead of Duke in the rankings. If only.
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