Another one of those fun set of rankings that is actually pretty well done.
The NBC Sports blog, Beyond the Arc has been running a weekly feature counting down the greatest basketball programs of all time. UNC popped up this week at #2 on the list(Kentucky will be #1.) These kind of rankings are interesting and I had a blast doing it this summer with UNC teams. The author of the blog is Mike Miller who sat on the bench under Roy Williams as a player.
I really cannot argue to heavily with UNC’s slot at #2. Kentucky has more NCAA titles and at present more wins. In many ways their overall historical success eclipses UNC by a bit though if UNC goes 38-2 and wins another title, you might have to swap these two in these rankings. Miller’s reasoning for placing UNC here was the absurd consistency of excellent the Heels have enjoyed. You basically have two bad seasons since Dean Smith got the ball rolling in the early 60s. That is hard to compete with by any standard. I do take issue with a couple of points he makes:
UNC has won 33 regular-season conference titles (4th), and at least two a decade since 1920. Only Kansas and Kentucky have done better.
Yes Kansas and UK have more regular-season conference titles but both them also play in weaker conferences than the ACC historically speaking. The Big 8/Big 12 and the SEC are football power conferences with basketball is a second fiddle save for the three months it is going on by itself. Kansas and Kentuck are basketball schools in football conferences. UNC is a basketball school in what has historically been a basketball conference meaning their degree of difficulty was a little tougher.
When longtime assistant Bill Guthridge took over, the Heels didn’t miss a beat. (Having Carter and player of the year Antawn Jamison helps.) But after just three seasons – and two Final Fours – Guthridge had enough.
New coach and ex-Heel Matt Doherty took Carolina to No. 1 in just his first season, but his eventual demise has become a cautionary tale for how to handle star players. An 8-20 season followed by an NIT berth? Unacceptable.
Wrong on both counts. It is easy to point to the 2000 Final Four and say UNC has not missed a beat but that team almost did not make the tournament and then had the bracket open up for them after they knocked off a weak #1 seed in Stanford. The 1999 team was good but ultimately fell to Weber State in the first round of the tournament. Even the 1998 team is considered extremely disappointing because they were loaded and had a winnable Final Four field but lost to Utah. I will leave it to others to debate how much of the ultimate failures on the court can be laid on Guthridge as a coach. I suspect there is some blame to be had there.
As for the “Matt Doherty was fired because UNC was losing” mem, this is standard fare for ABCers. Yes, the losing did not help matters but personnel issues did most of the damage. The 8-20 season can really be blamed on the lack of recruiting under Guthridge. And it was not an issue of handling star players for Doherty it was an issue of handling people in general and understanding things like tact or how to make transitions without pissing very important people off.
Overall, Miller did a fairly good job of balancing his countdown. It was refreshing to see someone not so infatuated with the last 27 years of Duke basketball that they permit the Coach K Era to trump long term historical success. Duke came in at #5. UCLA was #4 and Kansas #3. Also, NC State with their two NCAA titles and deep roots in the infancy of the ACC came in at #25.
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UK has 7 titles over time to UNC’s 4 titles. It is hard to argue that UK is #1 historically with them also having the most all time wins. If UCLA had won a title the last 3 years, we might be hearing about them at #2.
I think the logic employed here is that UNC and UK both have a long, consistent history of success and the tiebreaker is ultimately the titles won. Kansas also has a long consistent history and has three titles which is why there 3rd.
Interestingly enough he sticks UCLA and Duke 4th and 5th respectively as to acknowledge that these two have been great programs for extended periods of time but nothing that really stretches back as far as the top three.
It seems to me he weighed the long term historical success heavier than other factors.
You have to include historical success. Great job by the writer here. To the 30 and under crowd, Duke is the greatest of all time. To those in my era 30-50, many consider UCLA/UNC to be the teams justified at a number one slot. Overall, Kansas and Kentucky have been successful for a long period of time, coming and going, but always on the winning side of things. I completely agree with the author’s assessment of this, and congratulations to him for his acknowledgement of what teams have been most consistent at winning. THF, I do agree with your rationale that UNC/Duke is in a predominate basketball conference, and you have to weigh that into the equation, in which I believe he has. A national title is a national title, and Kentucky (as much as I hate ‘em) has 7. UCLA does have more, but he properly placed them due to other variables that should factor in. I do take issue with his reasoning for the down-time UNC suffered in 02-03, and you articulated my thoughts exactly THF. Now that you have the ship sailing right, he needs to go back and revise it with your editing THF, and it will all be factually correct.
I don’t understand how for #1 program it isn’t UCLA, they have the most Championships. They seemed to dominate the 60 and 70′s not that I would remember and they had one heck of a coach in Coach Wooden. Confusing.
Not really when you ask the question: What did UCLA do before Wooden arrived? What did it do after he left?
UCLA’s title run went from 1964 to 1975. The won it nine times in eleven years. They had a couple of Final Four appearances a few years prior to that, but nothing beyond that. After 1975 they have won one title and been to five Final Fours(three in a row recently) over the course of 26 years. During that time they missed tournaments or generally were a non-factor. In other words UCLA has enjoyed localized success at certain times but nothing that stretches across seven decades like UK, UNC and Kansas can claim. Just because one coach comes in, manages to recruit a great team for 12 years(that may or may not have been helped by a booster) and wins a slew of titles does not make them necessarily better than schools that are constantly in the Final Four or playing for the title as UNC has been.
TO add a note Kansas and Kentucky were good in the 50′s. Basically the start of basketball. i.e. no competition. Who cares how many wins you get when your playing the College of the flying nuns?
Ask Bobby Knight about UCLA in the 60′s and early 70′s. To this day he contends that UCLA benefitted from illegal recruiting and interference from boosters. Just sayin’. I think the other factor is how many bad seasons these storied programs have had. UCLA has had plenty of bad seasons after Wooden left in between their occasional successful ones.
PR,
That is probably the simplified version of my point. UCLA’s lows are much lower than the ones experienced by UNC, Kansas and UK which effectively cancels out the highs of a 12 year stretch.
UCLA’s run of excellence will probably never be equaled. However, in the days before the NCAA field was expanded there were fewer games to win (or chances to lose) to get to the final four and title game. Also, the talent level at UCLA during those years was unsurpassed with the exception of Wooden’s 1st National Championship team that beat Duke. Everybody, pretty-much, started the season knowing they were playing for second place against those UCLA teams. It took one of the best teams in ACC history (the NC State/David Thompson team) to finally break that UCLA mystique.
Asheville Heel, thanks for mentioning the bracketology, which is key here. Shout out to Jimmy & Rhonda Stubbs, who have mentioned this as well.
I guess so. I wish we could hoist all those Banners up in our rafters though.
As much as I would like to argue that we have as much sustained success as Kentucky, and their lows after the scandals in the 80s are lower than UNC’s during 8-20, I can’t really put them ahead of Kentucky over the entire history of both programs.
Having said that, it’s still football season it’s not basketball season yet I can’t hear you (covers ears) LALALALALALALALALALALA
I’m sure someone will correct me if this is wrong, but I believe that during UCLA’s dominance, the NCAA seedings were actually geography-based. Coupled with the much smaller field, the weak West region pretty much guaranteed the Bruins a spot in the final 4 every year.
Of course, those were outstanding teams that probably would have made it anyway.
I think the top 5 are properly ranked. This guy did a very good job overall. Very interesting.
I was surprised the wulfpack wasn’t a little higher. Thompson’s reign rivals King Micheal’s. I hate to say how much I liked that wulfpack (except when they played UNC) during that time period.
Darn, enough about them from me….
Like I said in another thread, I do wish NC State would become a bigger part of the triangle basketball competition again like they once were, and especiall would like to see them beat up on the Boston Colleges, Virginia Techs, and Miami’s. Clemson seems to have regained some of that. Virginia-Mulholland, Where have you guys been? Maryland, get back in the game. I see big things for the Wake Forest program. Expect for Georgia Tech to be slight no more.
I would like to correct that we have 5 National Championships in basketball (1924)… I’ve seen the trophy. I realize it came before the NCAA was established in 1939, but that wasn’t Carolina’s fault and it was a National Championship and should be counted.
JB,
This is the year I would like all the teams in the ACC to be just a little down. You know give us some comp but not to much. That way with the season half way over, we’ve won the ACC out right to give our guys some rest. Wishful thinking, I know.
I expect your assessment to be right Keith. Duke will dominate as well, and Wake should be able to give some fits. We might be the only team that Duke can’t beat. Most Duke fans are calling for a final game showdown that will determine the ACC regular season winner. Seems like that was the case last year. You couple last year’s great effort with some incoming big men, they think that THEY are the team to beat in the ACC.
They are dreaming. The ACC title will be won early and I truly believe we beat them two to three times if we get them in the Tourney.
I honestly expect UNC to win the regular season with no worse than a 15-1 record.
Looks good to me THF. I am not trying to change the subject here, but would a win vs UCONN put us in the top 25? Since UCONN is primarily a running team, I don’t expect the absence of their QB to hurt them too much, although my hopes are that it does.
The key to winning the National Championship will be losing to Wake Forest
I know the 82 and 05 teams lost to Wake on the way…….
Good observation HeelsPerspective! I won’t be heartbroken if we drop a game or two, in so much that the loss does not come in Cameron, as I want Tyler to go undefeated there. No loss is acceptable once the ACC tourney takes place and going forward. This will be our best opportunity to win for the next couple of years, given TH will be gone, and most of our juniors will be on the out as well. Once we get Marshall and Bullock in here to go with the Wear Boys & Stricland, we may have a decent shot at it again. But I think we are so far ahead of the field this year.
UNC lost to Wake in 1993 as well. In 1993 and 2005 also lost to GT in the ACC Tournament.
Steve the State Fan,
You are correct in saying the NCAA torunament regionals in the Wooden era were purely geographic. The West Regional normally had no team that could compete with the Bruins, but that doesn’t detract from their great success.
Tommy Tar Heel,
I agree with your point. The Helms Foundation championship has as much validity as a national championship in football, pre- or post-BCS.
Regarding the upcoming basketball season, I don’t mind losing a game, except in the case of Duke, and, in fact, fear that maintaining winning streaks can supersede the more important objective of winning the national championship.
Regarding the present football season, I am excited about our chances for a bowl game. For that to happen Sexton has to continue playing well with no, or minimal, turnovers. It feels good to be competitive in football games again. I’ll be there Saturday night, even though I am a prisoner of war in cold, barren Ohio.