Ranking the Top 10 Traditions in College Basketball

College basketball is evermore a future-oriented pastime.

What's the latest school to catch the eye of that five-star point guard? Whose game will best translate to the next level? Who will stay another year, and who will depart for the pros?

It's certainly an understandable thing, and it's certainly not unique to basketball. The unknown future is always going to capture attention faster than the past, which just sits there and waits for us.

But history in college basketball is what made the top programs of today. What follows is a look at the present through that lens of history. These are the 10 greatest college basketball traditions right now.

Rankings are based on the number of championships and Final Four appearances, total wins, demonstrated excellence over a long period of time, place in history and current status in the sport.

Statistics based on data from the official NCAA record book and ESPN.com. Team records are accurate as of December 5, 2014.

10. Syracuse Orange

KEVIN RIVOLI/Associated Press

Carmelo Anthony

Year of inception: 1901
Record: 1907-840
Championships: 1
Final Fours: 5
Notable figures: Jim Boeheim, Carmelo Anthony, Dave Bing, Sherman Douglas, Hakim Warrick

The 'Cuse has the lowest number of championships and Final Four appearances of any team on the list. But they're always there. That in itself can help constitute a tradition.

Boeheim took the reigns in 1976. Only four active NBA players were alive when he coached his first game for the Orange 38 years ago.What fan can forget those battles with Georgetown and St. John's back in the 1980s, when the Big East ruled the nation?

Or what about one of the best games I've personally ever watched, that six-overtime epic with Connecticut in the 2009 conference tournament? That game spread across email and the web like wildfire, with friend telling friend: "are you watching this?" That's a special thing.

The team has a well-documented history of underperformance in big games, but it means something that they always find themselves in them.

Only twice during Boeheim's tenure has Syracuse failed to win 20 games. And with a .694 winning percentage, only four programs (Kentucky, North Carolina, Kansas and Duke) have higher success rates over their history. That's what I call a tradition.

9. Michigan State Spartans

Anonymous/Associated Press

Magic Johnson

Year of inception: 1899
Record: 1586-1048
Championships: 2
Final Fours: 8
Notable figures: Magic Johnson, Tom Izzo, Jud Heathcote, Scott Skiles, Mateen Cleaves

Before Magic and Bird brought the NBA to new heights, they did the same for March Madness.

That was 1979, and as you know, Johnson's Spartans took down Larry Bird's Indiana State Sycamores to capture that season's championship.

In the years after Magic, the Spartans wandered the hinterlands under Heathcote. Izzo took over in 1995 and hasn't looked back.

They've missed the Big Dance only twice under Izzo and are now comfortably ensconced as a modern college basketball blue-blood. Not a bad way to capitalize on the opportunities your own program, in no insignificant way, made possible.

8. Connecticut Huskies

DOUG MILLS/Associated Press

Richard Hamilton (left) and Jim Calhoun

Year of inception: 1901
Record: 1624-898
Championships: 4
Final Fours: 5
Notable figures: Ray Allen, Jim Calhoun, Kevin Ollie, Richard Hamilton, Kemba Walker

The Huskies are slight Johnny-come-latelies to the national tradition discourse. They've been making up for lost time.

In 1998, the program had no national titles to its name. Now it has four. They've only made the Final Four once and failed to bring home the banner (back in 2009).

It's hard to argue with that kind of success. The Huskies are a steady drumbeat of consistency in the sport today, winning a championship every five years, give or take. And it's not just The Jim Calhoun Show, either, as Kevin Ollie very quickly demonstrated.

But this high-density winning obscures a longer history. The Huskies won their first conference championship in 1941 and once finished tops in the immortal Yankee Conference for 10 consecutive seasons.

7. Louisville Cardinals

Associated Press

Pervis Ellison (left)

Year of inception: 1912
Record: 1734-875
Championships: 3
Final Fours: 10
Notable figures: Denny Crum, Pervis Ellison, Wes Unseld, Rick Pitino

Crum nabbed two titles in a seven-year span. That's pretty doggone good but, in and of itself, not the stuff of tradition. 

That's probably one reason why Cardinals fans are so fond of Pitino. The banner he brought to Louisville in 2013 provided the second electrode needed to create an arc across eras—and a real, live tradition of winning in the process.

6. Indiana Hoosiers

BILL HABER/Associated Press

Keith Smart takes the game-winning shot in the 1987 NCAA title game.

Year of inception: 1901
Record: 1742-982
Championships: 5
Final Fours: 8
Notable figures: Bobby Knight, Isiah Thomas, Walt Bellamy, Branch McCracken

Indiana, as anyone from or in the state is not shy to tell you, is one of the true incubators of basketball. Their state university squad, with its Hoosier Hysteria and candy-striped pants and Keith Smart and chair-throwing and so on, embodies a tradition like no other.

There's no arguing that they haven't exactly been lighting the world on fire of late. It's a testament to the greatness of some of their past seasons, however, that they still hold an active national record. They're the last school to finish undefeated: Knight's Hoosiers did the deed in 1976, going 32-0 and cutting down the final net. No other men's team has done it since. 

5. Kansas Jayhawks

WILLIAM P. STRAETER/Associated Press

Wilt Chamberlain played for the Kansas Jayhawks

Year of inception: 1899
Record: 2131-823
Championships: 3
Final Fours: 14
Notable figures: Wilt Chamberlain, Danny Manning, Paul Pierce, Phog Allen, Larry Brown 

For all its history, for the murderers' row of NBA All-Stars who have walked through the Allen Fieldhouse doors, for all the Hall of Fame coaches who have manned the sidelines in Lawrence, you'd think Kansas would have more than three national titles.

At least, that's what I thought. Guess not. But the oldest college basketball program in the nation still has plenty to be proud of.

Yeah, all those early tournament-exits take a toll on their legacy. But their consistency remains formidable. They've reached the tournament each of the past 30 years, with the exception of their 1988-89 probation season, which was also the last time they didn't win 20 games. 

4. Duke Blue Devils

GRANT HALVERSON/Associated Press

Jason Williams (left) and coach Mike Krzyzewski

Year of inception: 1906
Record: 2035-849
Championships: 4
Final Fours: 15
Notable figures: Mike Krzyzewski, Grant Hill, Christian Laettner, Bobby Hurley, Jason Williams

The blood doesn't get much bluer than this. Duke has owned the ACC lately and are the epitome of the team that reloads, rather than rebuilds, season after season after season, like it or not.

A testament to that greatness? Only UCLA has spent more weeks atop the AP poll than the Blue Devils. And the dominance shows no signs of abating. Since the turn of the millennium, Duke has notched 25 or more victories in all but one season. That's on a different type of level. 

And they're right there again this year, with a monstrous recruiting class anchored by Jahlil Okafor. Is Coach K ever going to begin the aging process, which ultimately fells us mortals? The Cameron Crazies certainly hope not.

3. North Carolina Tar Heels

Associated Press

Michael Jordan (left) and coach Dean Smith

Year of inception: 1911
Record: 2119-757
Championships: 5
Final Fours: 18
Notable figures: Michael Jordan, Dean Smith, Frank McGuire, James Worthy, Larry Brown 

Duke fans might argue that the Blue Devils deserve the nod over the Tar Heels. They've been the better program over the past few years, but the long view of history reveals a different picture.

UNC has more championships, more Final Four appearances, more wins and a better win percentage. They've also won a title in each of the past three decades. 

Oh, and the greatest player to ever touch the basketball. They have that on their resume, too. I'd say this all has the makings of a very nice little tradition.

2. Kentucky Wildcats

ERIC DRAPER/Associated Press

Scott Padgett

Year of inception: 1903
Record: 2147-672
Championships: 8
Final Fours: 16
Notable figures: Adolph Rupp, Rick Pitino, Pat Riley, Dan Issel, Anthony Davis

They might be controversial, there is definitely adversity (self-inflicted, mainly), but those Wildcats always seem to find a way to run through it.

If you thought this John Calipari one-and-done criticism was the first time the program has seen the negative side of the light, you have another thought coming.

From a gambling scandal in the 1950s, to institutional racism accusations in the 1960s, to NCAA probation in the late 1980s, to getting bounced out of the NIT's first round by Robert Morris in 2013 the year after they won the whole shebang, well, it's just not always smooth sailing out there in Lexington.

And yet, here they are, counting their eight titles and looking poised this season to make a run at a ninth. They've produced more NBA All-Stars than other elite programs have produced NBA players, period, and they are the unquestioned top destination for today's elitest (if that's even a word) prospects.

It's a special program with a special brand of swagger, and Big Blue makes for one heck of a good tradition. The game's not the same when Kentucky's not in the mix. Go ahead and throw your hands up, Scott Padgett. You've earned it.

1. UCLA Bruins

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Lew Alcindor (left), coach John Wooden and Sidney Wicks

Year of inception: 1920
Record: 1787-790
Championships: 11
Final Fours: 17
Notable figures: John Wooden, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Walton, Reggie Miller

There's no greater tradition in college basketball than the UCLA Bruins tradition.

Their dominance in the late 1960s and early 1970s rivals or surpasses the most dominant streaks in all of sports. They still have the highest number of weeks atop the AP poll. That's the sort of thing that will happen when you win seven consecutive championships and 10 over a span of 12 seasons.

I mean, good god. Seven consecutive championships? It's hard to even conceive of that today.

There are eight different rosters in college basketball that have completed an undefeated season. Four of those wore the True Blue and gold.

They don't have the win percentage of a few of these other programs, but when you have that many nets around your neck, it hardly matters.