Is Michigan One Of College Basketball's Top 20 All-Time Programs?
Though the Michigan Wolverines' basketball program isn't necessarily viewed as a blue blood in its sport the way its football team is, the Maize and Blue hardcourters are nonetheless still looked at as one of the game's premier programs.
CBS analyst Matt Norlander ranked the top programs in college basketball history based on a points system (which is revealed below), and tabbed Michigan at No. 18 on his list.
Norlander only looked at accomplishments since the NCAA Tournament began in 1939, highlighting each teams' record since then, regular-season conference titles, NCAA Tournament appearances, Final Fours, weeks ranked and top-60 NBA Draft picks.
Below was the criteria Norlander used to award points:
• NCAA Tournament championships (20 points)
• Final Four appearances without a national title (10 points)
• Regular-season titles (5 points)
• Elite Eights without making the Final Four (3 points)
• NIT titles (3 points)
• NCAA Tournament bids (2 points)
• Wins (0.5 points)
• Losses (-0.5 points)
• Wins over ranked opponents (0.5 points)
• Weeks ranked (0.1 point)
• Top-10 NBA picks (5 points)
• 11-30 NBA picks (3 points)
• 31-60 NBA picks (1 point)
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With all that in mind, Michigan finished with 699.7 points, checking in as the fifth most successful team in the Big Ten behind No. 7 Indiana, No. 12 Ohio State, No. 14 Michigan State and No. 15 Illinois.
None of the clubs who finished in the top five came as a surprise, with Kentucky checking in at No. 1, North Carolina at No. 2, Duke at No. 3, UCLA at No. 4 and Kansas at No. 5.
"The swaggiest team in college basketball history defined an era, ushering in college basketball in the early 1990s and keeping it competitive with the Jordan-bolstered NBA," Norlander wrote of Michigan's No. 18 ranking.
"Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, Juwan Howard, Jimmy King, Ray Jackson: the Fab Five. Freshmen who kept Michigan top-10 good a few years after, oh hello, this program won the national championship in 1989. (Its only NCAA title.)
"Michigan's been playing college basketball since Jan. 9, 1908, and the results are undeniable. Yet again we have a school so much more known for its football team (football: kind of a huge thing in this country) but it's nearly as good in basketball.
"Michigan won 209 games under Johnny Orr and made multiple deep tournament runs in the 1960s and '70s. Bill Frieder won 189 more games -- before Bo Schembechler canned him prior to the start of the 1989 NCAA Tournament, when it became known Frieder had a handshake deal to take the Arizona State job after the season.
"Steve Fisher took over, won it all in '89, but booster rulebreaking eventually wound up costing Michigan a lot of wins in the record books. Then John Beilein brought the Wolverines to two Final Fours and returned U-M to top-25 status in the sport in the past 10 years.
"It's not the best program in the Big Ten but it's capable of being the best program as frequently as any other team. Consensus All-Americans: Cazzie Russell, Rickey Green, Gary Grant, Chris Webber, Trey Burke.
"An onslaught of NBA picks beyond that, with Rudy Tomjanovich, Campy Russell, Roy Tarpley, Glen Rice, Rumeal Robinson, Robert Traylor, Jamal Crawford, Tim Hardaway Jr., Nik Stauskas and Caris LeVert lead that list.
"Rice's 184 points in the '89 NCAAs remains a tournament record. Russell is the best player in program history, the only two-time consensus All-American and someone who finished his career with 27.1 points per game."
One of the aspects that has made Michigan one of the 20 best programs in the history of the sport is the consistent success it has had over the last 60 years. The Wolverines have played in at least one national championship in five of the six decades since the 1960s, with the 2000s being the lone exception.
No other Big Ten program can lay claim to that feat — including traditional league powerhouse Indiana, who has been to a national title in only three of the past six decades.
In fact, Duke and North Carolina are the only two schools who have played for at least one national championship in every decade since the '60s, while UCLA is the only other program (along with Michigan) who has appeared in one in five of the six decades since.
U-M has also won at least one Big Ten regular-season title in six of the 10 decades since the 1920s. All of these aforementioned statistics show that, though the Wolverines have experienced some dark times in their history, they have always bounced back to once again experience high levels of success.
The recent 10-year NCAA Tournament-less drought from 1999-2008 is the perfect example. The Wolverines endured five losing seasons during that stretch and finished higher than seventh in the conference only three times during those 10 years, before Beilein resurrected the program in a big way.
Trips to the national championship in 2013 and 2018 ensued, while the club won a program-record 33 games in the latter. The Maize and Blue also won two Big Ten regular-season titles under his watch (2012 and 2014), while also taking home two conference tournament championships (2017 and 2018).
Howard is continuing Michigan's success during his first year-plus on the job, with the program going 19-12 last year and 5-0 so far this season. If Howard can bring a second national championship to Ann Arbor, it would instantly vault the Maize and Blue program up an echelon and into some elite company.
Only 15 college basketball programs have won at least two national titles since the NCAA Tournament's inception in 1939.
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