Ten College Basketball Programs

I'm taking a look at the last forty years, so going back to 1973, as I think, roughly speaking, this is a fair period of time to evaluate college basketball programs with an eye towards both the historical and modern.

1. Washington Huskies
-Marv Harshman was head coach from 1971-1985, leading the Huskies to 13 winning seasons in 14 years, 3 NCAA appearances, and 2 NIT appearances.
-From 1985 to 2002, the Huskies dipped under the tutelage of Andy Russo, Lynn Nance, and Bob Bender. In 17 seasons, the Huskies finished over .500 just six seasons with three NCAA appearances and one trip to the Sweet Sixteen in 1998. During the last three seasons of Bender's regime, the combined record for the Huskies was 31-58.
-In the ten seasons since Lorenzo Romar has taken over, the Huskies have appeared in six NCAA appearances, including three trips to the Sweet Sixteen.

2. Pitt Panthers
-In the early '70s, under coach Buzz Ridl, the Panthers went as far as the Elite Eight with All-American Billy Knight. Ridl retires in 1975.
-Tim Grugrich replaced Ridl and had middling success, being replaced Roy Chipman who recruited solidly (Charles Smith, Jerome Lane, Demetrius Gore) but was not able to translate into much success.
-Chipman's replaced by Paul Evans in 1986 who leads the Panthers to five NCAA appearances in eight seasons, but was marked by inconsistency and unmet expectations, with the last appearance in 1993.
-Evans is replaced by Ralph Willard in 1994 who in five years advanced to only one NIT appearance before being replaced by Ben Howland in 1999.
-First with Ben Howland and followed by Jamie Dixon, the Panthers end an eight year NCAA drought and begin a stretch of 10 consecutive NCAA appearances from 2002-2011, marked by four Big East conference championships.

3. Stanford Cardinal
-In 14 seasons from 1973 to 1986, the Cardinal have two winning seasons and no postseason appearances under coaches Howard Dallmar, Dick DiBiaso, and Tom Davis.
-Mike Montgomery takes over in 1987 and has 17 winning season in 18 years, marked by twelve NCAA appearances, marked by three Sweet Sixteens, an Elite Eight, and Final Four appearance, along with four Pac-10 titles.
-After Montgomery left, the Cardinal have regressed somewhat under Trent Johnson and now Johnny Dawkins, with only three NCAA appearances in eight seasons and none in the four seasons since Dawkins has been head coach.

4. Wisconsin Badgers
-In the 23 seasons between 1973 and 1995, the Badgers achieved four winning seasons with three NIT appearances and one NCAA appearance.
-Dick Bennett leads the Badgers to four NCAA appearances in six seasons, with a surprising Final Four run in 2000* (should be noted that Bennett retired in the middle of the 2001 season and was replaced by Brad Soderberg, which I counted in this tally)
-Since Bo Ryan has taken over in 2001-02, the Badgers have went to 11 consecutive NCAA tournaments and claimed Big Ten titles in three seasons.

5. Texas A & M Aggies
-In Shelby Metcalf's last 18 seasons at A&M (1973-1990) the Aggies had 14 seasons above .500 marked by three NCAA berths and four NIT appearances.
-After firing Metcalf (the all-time winningest coach in SWC history) during the 1990 season, A&M goes through a stretch of three coaches in 14 years, finishing above .500 twice and going to one NIT in that time period. The Aggies bottom out in 2004 when they go 0-16 in Big 12 conference play.
-Billy Gillispie takes over in 2004-05 and leads the Aggies to three 20 win seasons and two NCAA appearances in three years, with a Sweet Sixteen in 2006-07 before leaving for Kentucky.
-Mark Turgeon takes over from Gillispie and keeps the 20 win season and NCAA tournament streak intact, going 4 for 4 in both categories before leaving for Maryland.
-Billy Kennedy has been head coach the last two seasons, and after a losing season last season, is vying to return A&M to a winning record and postseason berth.

6. Georgia Tech
-Dwane Morrison took over the head coaching duties in 1973 and lasted until 1981. In eight seasons, Tech had three winning seasons and no post-season appearances. In Morrison's last season, Tech goes 0-14 in conference play.
-Bobby Cremins takes over in '81 and beginning in 1985 begins a run of nine straight NCAA appearances, including four Sweet Sixteens, two Elite Eights, and a Final Four. In total, Cremins coaches at Tech for 20 years, has 14 winning seasons, and 10 NCAA appearances.
-Paul Hewitt takes over for Cremins and in the course of eleven seasons has wildly inconsistent run; six winning seasons, five NCAA appearances including a national championship runner-up year in 2004.
-Brian Gregory is in year two of the reclamation project with Tech headed towards a second straight losing season under Gregory, and three consecutive losing seasons.

7. Miami (Fla) Hurricanes
-Miami rejoins D-1 competition in 1985 with Bill Foster coaching the team for the next five seasons, with two winning seasons, and no post-season campaigns.
-Leonard Hamilton takes the reigns and after four consecutive losing seasons to start, runs off six straight winning campaigns that include three NCAA appearances.
-Perry Clark takes over, has two winning seasons (one NCAA appearance) followed by two losing seasons and gets fired.
-Frank Haith follows and in seven seasons has six winning campaigns with one NCAA appearance.
-Jim Larranga is now in year two and after a NIT appearance is now bringing the Hurricanes to a high seed in the tournament.

8. Oklahoma St. Cowboys
-The program built by Hank Iba went through a very rough stretch in his latter years and through the next four coaches. In the 16 seasons from 1973-88, the Cowboys have 4 winning seasons and one postseason appearance in the NCAA's.
-In Leonard Hamilton's third season the Cowboys have the first of 23 winning seasons, through the years of Hamilton, Eddie Sutton, Sean Sutton, and Travis Ford, broken last year.
-Over Eddie Sutton's 16 years, the Cowboys go to 13 NCAA tournaments (2 Final Fours, 3 Elite Eights, 6 Sweet Sixteens).
-After a dip under Sean Sutton, the Cowboys appear on track again with Travis Ford who had 2 NCAA appearances in first four years and appears on track to bring the Cowboys back this season.

9. Connecticut Huskies
(Wikipedia's got a really weak entry on UConn and I'm getting lazy, so I'm going to be breezy on this entry)
-UConn was an inaugural member of the Big East in 1979 and was an also ran in the Big East until Jim Calhoun came along in 1986. Beginning in 1990, the Huskies began a run as one of the powers of NCAA basketball, with 18 NCAA appearances and three national championships under Calhoun's regime.

10. Arizona Wildcats
-In 1973, the Fred Snowdon era began in Tucson, getting off to a successful start with seven winning seasons out of ten, with two NCAA tournament appearances and an Elite Eight appearance. In his last three years, the Wildcats have three losing campaigns and he is replaced by Ben Lindsey who goes 4-24 overall and 1-17 in the Pac 10. Lute Olson begins in 1903-84 and after an initial losing season runs off a streak of 23 straight Final Fours (25 consecutive with Kevin O'Neal and Russ Pennell following). Olson brings a national title and four Final Four appearances to campus.

Commonalities with the Gophers program

* Eight of these ten universities are large public universities
* Five of these programs exist in major metropolitan areas, similar to the "U", with professional teams garnering the major attention in the local sporting world
* Of those not in a major metro area, at least three (A&M, Wisconsin, and Oklahoma St) are definite second bananas to the football programs
* Only one of these programs (Oklahoma St) would have been considered an elite program previous to the 40 year period I cover and before they rose again from mediocrity
* All of these programs play in major conferences

Differences with Gopher program
* Tubby Smith is far and away the most credentialed coach who arrived to save programs that were floundering; while you could put in an argument for Eddie Sutton (who was emerging from the Fed Ex scandal at Kentucky) or Lute Olson, no other head coach who lifted the respective programs up to elite status had the resume of Tubby

* None of these programs are the only D-1 program in their state, like Minnesota

An assumption that I can assume is accurate
* Before each of these programs took off or re-emerged, I'm positive that there were numerous people who provided reasons why these programs could never achieve or maintain success; before something happens, there's sufficient proof and logic as to why something can't happen (ex. 4 minute mile, man walking on the Moon)

Save Your Breath
If your rebuttal is that you can name 10 programs from major conferences that seem to always wallow in mediocrity, I can too (South Carolina, Northwestern, Penn State, Seton Hall, Providence, Texas Tech, Arizona St, Washington St, Oregon St, and Auburn in about thirty seconds). It's rather easy to identify those programs, but the purpose of my post is to point out that many successful programs did not don the uniforms and become legendary-they experienced rough patches in their history and were able to establish a sustained run of above average results on the basketball court. I see no reason why the Gophers don't possess the same capability.

Only one of these programs (Oklahoma St) would have been considered an elite program previous to the 40 year period I cover

Click to expand...

That depends entirely on the meaning of the word previous. Wisconsin won national titles in 1912, 1914, 1916, and 1941; Pitt in 1928 and 1930; Stanford in 1937 and 1942.

Wisconsin coach Doc Meanwell practically invented the game as it was played from WWI until the arrival of the low post in 1945ish. And oddly enough Windy Levis, a Wisconsin all-American under Meanwell, went on to coach Everett Dean at Indiana in the early 1920s, and Dean went on to coach Stanford to those 2 national titles. Levis and Dean both coached at Carleton in Northfield, MN, too, btw, and Dean coached Ozzie Cowles there, and it was Cowles and Dartmouth whom Dean and Stanford beat in the NCAA final in 1942. Levis, Dean and Cowles all played Meanwell's ball control game. So I think you meant previous but not too previous.

Arizona under Fred Enke was not a pushover either. And Enke replaced a good coach as well. They were not a powerful team nationally so much, but Arizona had only become a state a few years prior, lol, but seriously, they were a power regionally, so Arizona was a very easy job to win at. And Lute Olson wasn't a nobody when he went down to Arizona, didn't he coach at Iowa and have success there before going to Arizona? Took Iowa to a FF if I remember correctly?!

And other than UCLA, the Pac-10 has never been DEEP as a conference. It's had some good years, but never has been close to being as deep as the Big Ten has been the last 25 years. So that addresses THREE of the teams you have listed among your Ten Teams.

Getting back to this post. . .first, I will admit that I got sloppy at the end of the post; it was taking me more time than I originally thought it would. And sunnyday, you are correct-I should have established that the programs listed may have had strong success in their past, but the only one that had been a national power, relatively recent to 1973, was Oklahoma State. (and thanks for the history lesson, that was pretty interesting)

To the other post, I acknowledged that Arizona had some solid success before Lute and I also acknowledged that Lute Olson was in the conversation as most accomplished coach to come in to turn around a program along with Sutton (although neither of them had won a national championship). Undoubtedly, Arizona had bottomed out before Olson arrived from Iowa however. That he turned around the Wildcats and made them the dominant team in the Pac-10 was an incredible feat considering the mountainous heights UCLA was to climb (and yes, I know post-Wooden was rocky, particularly during the Walt Hazzard years, but nonetheless, it was no easy feat dragging Arizona up to the pinnacle of that conference).

I also don't follow your argument that because the Pac-10 hasn't been as deep as the Big Ten, that this discounts what has occurred in Washington, Stanford, and Arizona as not being worthy for comparison to Minnesota. Bringing a program (back) to prominence is never an easy task and several arguments can be made why it was a tougher task at these three universities vs. what Minnesota faces.

Simply put, I will refer back to this statement, to all of those who seem to bemoan that we can/should never expect anything above mediocrity at Minnesota: before something happens, there's sufficient proof and logic as to why something can't happen. The programs listed above speak to this.