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ESPN: Bradley is 101st Most Prestigious BBall Program

PTownHawkeye

PTownHawkeye

New member
ESPN has come up with a formula to rank the "Most Prestigious" college basketball programs since 1984. They are revealing the Top 50 over the course of this week, starting with Nos. 41-50 today. This link shows their formula and the unveiling of Nos. 41-50.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=3481014

Below is the link for Nos. 51-300. I was disappointed to see that Bradley fell to a measly tie for 101st. This means we rank in the 2nd tier (albeit barely) of college basketball programs. Once I understood the formula, I can see why we fell so low.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=3481843

To see a program like UT-Chattanooga in the top 50 shows me there is one fatal flaw...they need to WEIGHT the conferences so it is more fair...I consider it less of an accomplishment to win a weak conference like the Southern than to get say 2nd or 3rd in the Valley. Just my opinion...
 
Well, we're as close as you can get to being a Top 100 program. ;-)

With our lack of sustained success over the last 20 years, I can see why we may have dropped from where we may have been, say, in the mid-1980's. I think we'd need a nice run of 2-3 conference championships and 2-3 NCAA bids in the next 5-6 years to elevate ourselves to that next level. It would sure be nice if that happened.
 
I wish

I wish

I wish they would have done this same list (maybe just the Top 30, or so) for the last 10 years. That time period, I think, is more pertinent in determining the level of a program is today. Do you you think recruits care too much about a first-round Tournament exit before they were born?
 
In reality the only thing that matters is who won today and that is Kansas.....and in a few months who cares. All these polls are subjective and I'm sure I can put together a scoring system that would put any school higher or lower then you would expect. If they want to know what is the best program to date they should look at the $$$ GENERATED.
 
tornado said:
In some sense I guess we can be happy Bradley even made the top 101,
as most of the people who make these lists up are Billy Packer/Digger Phelps-types who have no regard at all for any smaller program that's not on the east coast.

Someone explain this to me....

SIU certainly could lay claim to being the top basketball program for the past 10-15 years at least in the Valley, and they are only #53,
BUT--- Missouri State, who've been pretty mediocre for all but a year or two, and weren't even D-I back in the mid-80's, they rank at #55 right behind SIU, and ahead of Creighton.

Gimme a break....and they have Texas A&M at #174, and South Carolina (who have won 2 National Championships - NIT's) at #185!!
Click to expand...

The key to your questions is losing seasons. A losing season is worth -3 points. Missouri State has only 2 losing seasons in the last 24 years. They have 7 NIT wins, 3 NCAA wins, one as a 15 seed (which was extra points). They won their conference 3 times. Conference tourney twice. Remember they played in a different conference for several years. Also SMS became D1 in 84 which means they have been D1 since the inception of field of 64 tourney started.

Creighton has more losing season's than you would think and South Carolina and Texas A&M have had double digit losing seasons.
 
Chico said:
We'll see who the cupcake is when BU-ETSU meet.
Click to expand...

Exactly. All this disrespect being thrown around.... someone's gonna be eating crow.

Hopefully it isn't Bradley fans, but if so... and crow is being served for everyone here buffet style, I prefer my crow grilled please. ;)
 
First of all, I don't think ETSU fans have been throwing disrespect around. We just said its sad that Bradley is the biggest game on our schedule. Bradley fans are the ones calling us cupcakes and directional nobodies. That list proves nothing, but I hope it shows some of your fans that we have a proud tradition too.:)
 
ETSUfan1 said:
First of all, I don't think ETSU fans have been throwing disrespect around. We just said its sad that Bradley is the biggest game on our schedule. Bradley fans are the ones calling us cupcakes and directional nobodies. That list proves nothing, but I hope it shows some of your fans that we have a proud tradition too.:)
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Thanks ETSUf1 and I agree.

There was a while back when talk about maybe "respect" was discussed... and how Bradley thinks it deserves respect from UIUC (that's the Fighting Illini of Illinois.... Univ. of Illinois in Urbana Champaign... another directional school, hehe ;) ) and something was said about how UIUC fans look down to Bradley like Bradley fans do to "low-majors". Eastern Illinois was just one example. And please don't think I am suggesting ETSU is. I felt Bradley has more respect for ALL opponents - on any given day no matter where the game played. We take that approach when we play the "big names", and our supposed "lower" opponents do too when they play us. So to me - every game is a big game. I don't care who you are and what you've done... it's a big game. Objective is to go out and win.

So I think if there is gonna be any crow served on this message board, it's gonna be served up to some Bradley fans.

I hope and do believe Bradley will take ETSU VERY seriously as I think it won't be a blowout/pushover/creampuff of a game.

Now... let me eat crow on that last statement... I'd gladly pour some Rudy's Bar-B-Q sauce on some grilled crow if Bradley blows out ETSU. ;)
 
In general, I don't have much issue with ranking BU at 101. Fans remember the good years ... this system also takes into consideration the bad years ... the years that fans tend to push out of their minds. If BU was ranked as a top 50 program for the last 25 years, then we would not have needed to bring in JL to rebuild ... just reload. ;)
 
One flaw: Finding a way to properly assign values for conferences. A conference title in the Southern Conference, or even the Valley for that matter, shouldn't equal a conference title out of a Big 6 conference.

Still, I'd love to see an all-time rendition of the list so we can be in the top 25, for giggles.

p.s. In the context of the criteria used, ETSU ahead of Bradley makes sense.
 
Also, scheduling more cupcakes to achieve 20+ win seasons and fewer losing seasons would have helped a lot, too.

Hey, moving to the Atlantic Sun Conference would probably have allowed Bradley to move into the top 50!
 
tornado said:
There is a fatal flaw, and it is obvious that they are subjective...

They have schools like UW-Green Bay, Arkansas-Little Rock, and yes, even ISU ranked right there where Bradley is.

Just what kind of post season success have those guys had??

BU Won an NCAA game in 1986, losing only to the eventual NCAA Champm and giving Louisville literally the toughest game they had,
and BU has had some consideable NCAA, NIT, and CBI success since.

Can someone rattle off for me a bit of the post-season successes of UW-Green Bay, Arkansas-Little Rock, and ISU?

If you really want a laffer...note that only 10 spots below BU is South Carolina State, a school whose RPI and SOS have been above 300 since they invented those terms, and who play in the MEAC, the worst conference of all time, that's never been rated any higher than 30th strongest conference in America!!
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I know UW-Green Bay had a nice run in the late 80's with Tony Bennett & his dad Dick running the team. They squashed the Jason Kidd Cal team in the NCAA one of those years. After Dicky left they have not done much. I would rate them over the other two you mentioned.
 
In addition to the huge difference in RPIs between Bradley and ETSU, I thought I would look at the Strength of Schedule for the 2 schools over the past 10 seasons. And the difference is even more drastic.
Again, the ESPN article does not consider either SOS or RPI, but only the number of seasons with 20 or more wins, and the number of losing seasons, and conference titles, etc. It stands to reason that if a school has a weaker schedule or they play in a weaker conference, they will appear much more "prestigious" on the ESPN list--

NCAA-calculated Strength of Schedule
Year.....BU...ETSU
2008....75....200
2007....21....267
2006....50....305
2005....81....210
2004...156....208
2003...114....189
2002...128....169
2001...123....257
2000....50....240
1999....75....233
Avg.....87.....228

As can be seen, East Tennessee State's strength of schedule in it's best year was 169, which is still worse than Bradley's SOS in it's absolute worst year! Yet all the geniuses at ESPN count are the wins!

One more comparison--
Here are the RPI rankings for the Missouri Valley, versus the conference that ETSU played in. Thye have been in the Atlantic Sun for the past 3 years (2008, 2007, and 2006), and prior to that they were in the Southern Conference (2005 and earlier).

Year....MVC....Atlantic Sun/Southern
2008....8.........29
2007....6.........27
2006....6.........29
2005....8.........20
2004...11........19
2003...12........20
2002...14........16
2001...12........23
2000...11........22
1999....8........19

Again seen is that the MVC has been a much tougher conference every year out of the last 10 years, and I guarantee that trend would also continue if we looked farther back.
 
tornado said:
then just how does ETSU still get ranked ahead of us?
Click to expand...

It's simply because playing in the weaker conferences with weak SOS's have allowed for them to avoid losing seasons, rack up 20+ win seasons, and conference championships.

I do not mean to offend any ETSU fans, or diss their team. They will be pretty good this year, and the game at Bradley will not be an easy one. But there is no way by comparing the tradition and history of the 2 schools that anyone would rank ETSU ahead of Bradley, except by the silly contrived manner that ESPN did it which completely ignores who the teams play, and the strengths of schedules and conferences.
 
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