ESPN/Sagarin ranks Gophers 14th best hoops program of ALL TIME

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Must admit, I'm pretty surprised by being ranked that high as an "all-time" program, regardless of what Sagarin says. In looking at it decade-by-decade, I guess it's conceivable. But overall, I tend to agree with Forde that the number 14 is a little high. More likely I would put us somewhere in the top 40-50 range.

Personally, I'm more interesting in us being a top-20 team for this year. But these rankings are certainly interesting if nothing else. I'm curious as to what the exact factors were in determining these rankings.
 

I think it does show that Minnesota has a strong tradition. The Monson years were horrible. Though Clem's infractions led directly to those years, Monson coasted pretty much his entire time here resulting in the illusion that Minnesota had no basketball tradition before Tubby.

If the Monson disease would have been allowed to continue, if we wouldn't have gotten Tubby Smith our basketball program might have gone the way of post Cal Stoll Football. And wouldn't that have been SAD.
 




I think these rankings are utterly ridiculous. I agree with Forde top 40-50, but not even close to the top 25.

I get that the program has been fairly consistent, but there has been very few great seasons. The program has won two Big Ten titles in my lifetime. And I'm not a youngster. They haven't had all that much success in the NCAA tournament. I don't get it.
 

anonymous said:
I think these rankings are utterly ridiculous. I agree with Forde top 40-50, but not even close to the top 25.

I get that the program has been fairly consistent, but there has been very few great seasons. The program has won two Big Ten titles in my lifetime. And I'm not a youngster. They haven't had all that much success in the NCAA tournament. I don't get it.
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One flaw in the Sagarin analysis is that teams like UCLA or Louisville were NAIB (now called NAIA) schools until 1950 and were ineligible for NCAA tourney until the 50's.

He failed to notice or understand that.
 

One flaw? There was a whole lot more than one flaw in this.
 

14th is a huge stretch

Without looking at Sagarin's rankings, I think I could name 25 programs off the top of my head with a better basketball history than the Gophers. In the Big 10 alone I come up with 6 for sure. ...

Illinois
Indiana
Michigan
Michigan State
Ohio State
Purdue
 



SelectionSunday said:
Without looking at Sagarin's rankings, I think I could name 25 programs off the top of my head with a better basketball history than the Gophers. In the Big 10 alone I come up with 6 for sure. ...

Illinois
Indiana
Michigan
Michigan State
Ohio State
Purdue
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How far back are you looking? I didn't look at Sagarin's methodology, so could be way off, but in the early days of NCAA basketball (1900-1920?) the gophers were a powerhouse--of course there weren't anywhere near as many schools playing, which relates to FOT's point. But If the Gophs averaged about 30 over the last 40 years, but were near the top for another 20 years, it's not hard to get to 14. Of course you could accurately argue that such a reuslt is meaningless, but then I'd argue that the whole concept of historical ranking of programs is pretty meaningless, and not really worth the few calories I just spent writing this. :)
 

SelectionSunday said:
Without looking at Sagarin's rankings, I think I could name 25 programs off the top of my head with a better basketball history than the Gophers. In the Big 10 alone I come up with 6 for sure. ...

Illinois
Indiana
Michigan
Michigan State
Ohio State
Purdue
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Sagarin/ESPN ratings have 8 Big 10 teams in their Top 15.
 

How could anyone rank Gopher hoop history as more heralded than Michigan State's?? Utterly ridiculous.

And how is Iowa 10th?
 

It's not necessarily too high if they literally mean 'of all time.' Having looked at the Gopher record books some time ago, they were quite good in the early decades of last century and even awarded a couple of retroactive 'Premo and Helms' National Championships. If they are weighting the decades of the 1900's and 1910's equally with the current decade and it seems that they are, then perhaps #14 is not too high.

Sure, it seems ridiculous for Minnesota to be ahead of Michigan State, but did Michigan State do much of anything before Judd Heathcote came along? If we were better from 1900-1979, and we probably were, then who's to say we shouldn't be ahead of them on this particular list?
 



howeda7 said:
It's not necessarily too high if they literally mean 'of all time.' Having looked at the Gopher record books some time ago, they were quite good in the early decades of last century and even awarded a couple of retroactive 'Premo and Helms' National Championships. If they are weighting the decades of the 1900's and 1910's equally with the current decade and it seems that they are, then perhaps #14 is not too high.

Sure, it seems ridiculous for Minnesota to be ahead of Michigan State, but did Michigan State do much of anything before Judd Heathcote came along? If we were better from 1900-1979, and we probably were, then who's to say we shouldn't be ahead of them on this particular list?
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The rankings were compiled based on results from 1938 through 2009 seasons (72 years).
 

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