Best Basketball Program in Each State?

[bigeastbiggerstage]

https://thebrokenanchor.com/who-has-the ... ery-state/

Xavier and Seton Hall getting some love here. By my count, there are 6 Big East Teams who own a state: Xavier, Seton Hall, Providence, UConn, Villanova, and Marquette. Anyone I'm missing?

[Omaha1]

Um yeah you missed creighton, the big one right in the middle of the country. Although it doesn’t say much to only have to be better than Nebraska.

[kayako]

Nova, UConn, Providence, Seton Hall, Creighton, and Georgetown if DC is its own category. I guess Wisconsin is debatable but I'd give Ohio to osu.

[Hall2012]

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess the author's a Xavier fan...

[MUBoxer]

A few things

1. this Dayton flyer guy is cherry picking data to suggest Dayton is a better program. Dayton is clearly a distant four.

2. Xavier is not the best program in Ohio. I'm sorry to say but you can't gloss over the lack of final fours/national championships. Outside of guessing that Xavier was in pretty much every sweet sixteen since 2000 I couldn't tell you another person. Whereas most avid CBB fans will be able to tell you about the Final Four teams years after its past.

3. Marquette is not the best program in WI. I hate to say it but it's true. Since WI became a respectable program in the 90s here's how it's gone

Championship game: UW 1 MU 0
Final Four: UW 3 MU 1
Elite 8: UW 4 MU 2
Sweet 16: UW 10 MU 5
NCAA appearances: UW 22 MU 16

In my opinion if this guy is going to qualify all of OSU and Cinci's history being old against Xavier then you would have to do the same with our 1967-1983 stretch.

[Xudash]

A few things

1. this Dayton flyer guy is cherry picking data to suggest Dayton is a better program. Dayton is clearly a distant four.

2. Xavier is not the best program in Ohio. I'm sorry to say but you can't gloss over the lack of final fours/national championships. Outside of guessing that Xavier was in pretty much every sweet sixteen since 2000 I couldn't tell you another person. Whereas most avid CBB fans will be able to tell you about the Final Four teams years after its past.

3. Marquette is not the best program in WI. I hate to say it but it's true. Since WI became a respectable program in the 90s here's how it's gone

Championship game: UW 1 MU 0
Final Four: UW 3 MU 1
Elite 8: UW 4 MU 2
Sweet 16: UW 10 MU 5
NCAA appearances: UW 22 MU 16

In my opinion if this guy is going to qualify all of OSU and Cinci's history being old against Xavier then you would have to do the same with our 1967-1983 stretch.

As much as I like my fellow Xavier fan's passion about Xavier's program, I have to agree that the blue-colored glasses are on when it comes to his conclusions. As far as Ohio goes, there are only three programs that can be taken seriously when it comes to the question posed: Ohio State, Xavier and UC.

By process of elimination, UC slips to 3rd place by virtue of its recent history under Cronin, its relegation to the AAC, and given the time elapsed since the Huggins regime and the aforementioned success in the very early 60's. UC has historically been known as a basketball school. It's recent-history chase/efforts to become a football school has cost it prestige on the basketball side of the ledger, and now it is very much stuck in a bad conference situation. UC can and should have a respectable basketball program, but, unlike UCONN, it has remained committed to athletic department purgatory as it wallows in the AAC, while looking for a P5 invite that most likely will now never arrive in Clifton.

Xavier? No doubt about it: #2 to Ohio State. Frankly, I don't even think it's about making a F4. It's about winning NC's. If we're going to truly define the highest point on the bar, that has to be it - - winning it all. I doubt Nova, Georgetown, UCONN, and Marquette fans would disagree with that notion. Yes, making it to a F4 is a big or key step, but what kind of weight should that receive vis-a-vis other factors. I would again cite the example of a question that asks whether or not the VCU, Loyola, George Mason, etc. programs are "better" than Xavier's program because they made it to a F4? Any way you cut it, Xavier has had a lot of tournament success - most NCAA wins of any program that hasn't made it to a F4 - yet - and with all that being mostly current: 2000 to now. I believe we'll break through at some point, understanding that breaking through will require a little luck and perhaps some fortunate match-ups along the way. That, as we all know, is the nature of that tournament.

With all that offered, X can't be the best program in Ohio, because Ohio State is sitting smack in the middle of the state with its resume, which is current enough under Matta (a former Xavier coach) to be more accomplished than Xavier's resume. Adding to that is the reality of the size of the school and its B1G affiliation.

In a sense, we share that type of dynamic with Marquette. We have the behemoth in Columbus. Marquette has the behemoth in Madison. The good news for the Big East is that, from a television viewing standpoint, games at the CIntas Center and games at Fiserv Forum are just as enjoyable, if not more enjoyable to watch than what goes on with our B1G counterparts.

Nova has Pennsylvania locked up. Seton Hall owns New Jersey. Providence owns RI. If you take the Beltway and Maryland out of it, Georgetown still owns D.C., but it really needs to get back on track. New York is interesting, unfortunately; Syracuse still gets the nod there - can Anderson bring St. John's back to the point where it passes a fading Boeheim? UCONN must protect itself from Fairfield and Yale (sarcasm font).

Otherwise, on the western side of things, Creighton clearly is the best in Nebraska. DePaul is....not first in Illinois. Butler is in an interesting position, having to go up against IU, PU, and ND. Again, it's very hard for a smaller private school to jump a B1G school or an ACC school when it comes to perceived ratings like this.

[billyjack]

Some thoughts...

- Making a Final Four is absolutely huuuuuuge compared to making an Elite-8. It completely puts your program on another level. Like, you'll live in a different universe. Especially if you have more than one. (National Championships are an even greater jump obviously... unbelievable that Wichita fans used to recently bust balls of UConn fans, and most UConn fans would sit and take it... how is that possible?)

- And if you're extra lucky, it's great if the coaches that took you to the Final Four include both the greatest visionary in college hoops history, and also the greatest self-promoter in history too.

- fans that criticize and try to delegitimize Xavier for having success only relatively recently, have to then shut the f-ck up about Wisconsin, which sucked absolute donkey balls from 1948 thru 1999.

- fans critical of Xavier also need to look at the performance of Ohio State from say 1972 to 2006, which is 35 years of nothingness except for a single Elite-8 and some vacated cheatin years.

- also, for all of Cincinnati's NCAA bids over the last 30 seasons, starting with that Final Four with Nick Van Exel... after 1992 they were just an NCAA choke factory... guaranteed pretty much to get great seeds out of Conference-USA and guaranteed to trip over themselves in Round 2.

[Fieldhouse Flyer]

Making a Final Four is absolutely huuuuuuge compared to making an Elite-8. It completely puts your program on another level. Like, you'll live in a different universe. Especially if you have more than one. National Championships are an even greater jump obviously.

I strongly agree. Let’s look at some relevant numbers:

National Champions, Runners-ups, and Final Fours

Ohio State Buckeyes men's basketball - Wikipedia

1960 • National Champions
1961 • National Championship Runner-up
1962 • National Championship Runner-up
1968 • Final Four
2007 • National Championship Runner-up
2012 • Final Four

Cincinnati Bearcats men's basketball - Wikipedia

1959 • Final Four
1960 • Final Four
1961 • National Champions
1962 • National Champions
1963 • National Championship Runner-up
1992 • Final Four

Dayton Flyers men's basketball - Wikipedia

1950–51 • National Championship Runner-up*
1951–52 • National Championship Runner-up*
1966–67 • National Championship Runner-up

• From 1938 through 1954, the NIT crowned college basketball’s nation champions.

The Xavier Musketeers have not yet played in a Final Four game.
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The fundamental problem with this thread is the important issue of time-period. In Post #1 above, bigeastbiggerstage did not specify a limited time-period for his assertion, nor was a limited time-period specified in The Broken Anchor article to which he referred. Therefore, if a limited time-period is not specified, the default time-period must be “All-Time” – which bigeastbiggerstage clearly implied in his post.

If a poster arbitrarily injects an unspecified and limited time-period into the discussion, that is “cherry picking”.

For the sake of clarity, please allow me to make the following observations:

If the specified time-period is “the last 20 years” the Ohio Rankings would be:

1. Ohio State
2. Xavier
3. Cincinnati
4. Dayton

If the specified time-period is “the last 50 years” the Ohio Rankings would be:

1. Ohio State
2. Cincinnati
3. Xavier
4. Dayton

Note that “the last 50 years” began in 1970, and that Dayton, Cincinnati and Ohio State provably had much better basketball programs than Xavier in the 1950s and 1960s. Link. Also, the following information cannot be ignored in the discussion of the “All-Time Best Basketball Program in Ohio”:

2019-20 Men’s Basketball Media Guide – Xavier University - November 18, 2019

Page 114: All-Time Records vs. All Opponents

Xavier vs. Ohio State • 1-3 (.250)
Xavier vs. Cincinnati • 35-51 (.407)
Xavier vs. Dayton • 76-85 (.472)

Bearing in mind billyjack’s prudent observations above, and the relevant information I quoted from ESPN, Wikipedia, NCAA.com, and Xavier University, the “All-Time Best Basketball Program in Ohio” rankings are clearly:

1. Ohio State
2. Cincinnati
3. Dayton
4. Xavier

I will be the first to acknowledge that “the last 20 years” and “the last 50 years” are far more relevant to the present day than the 1950s and 1960s – there is no question about that. But the The Broken Anchor article and bigeastbiggerstage’s Post #1 both referred to “All-Time” Rankings, which has a very specific meaning.

If the article had specified the “the last 20 years” or “the last 50 years”, I would not have posted on this thread. But I consider The Broken Anchor article to be poorly researched and poorly written, and consequently, failed to make the point that its anonymous writer intended. About Broken Anchor

[billyjack]

Again, i want to stress how freakin horrible Wisconsin was through 1999. They were a niblet ahead of Northwestern. They contributed nothing the sport, except maybe Michael Finley was a Badger.

Also, people can't cite Ohio State's or Cincinnati's success in 1962, but then dismiss for example St John's 50 year run of postseason berths.

Also, stepping back... great programs should contribute beyond the W-L records and NCAA runs. They need NBA picks and contributors, or great coaches and personalities, or great arenas, or something significant like that.

Comparing Wisconsin to Marquette... for me, in my 50's, sitting here 1200 miles away... Marquette has contributed exponentially more to college hoops than Wisconsin.... including coaches, players, history, NBA guys, bad-asses... to me it's not even close. The last thing i want to watch is a bunch of Ivan Lendl or Pete Sampras types dominating the sport-- gimme Jimmy Connors, McEnroe, Martina, Serena, and Borg, you know? Wisconsin is the freakin Ivan Lendl of college hoops.

[thunderbird]

If a poster arbitrarily injects an unspecified and limited time-period into the discussion, that is “cherry picking”.

So you're saying MUBoxer was correct you were "cherry picking" (as you're wont to do) in your previous post in this thread, which has since been deleted(?), when you listed each Ohio school's record from last season as part of your "argument." Got it.