Who has the best college basketball program over the last 20 years? It is a popular debate among basketball fans with the, "My team is better than yours," and ,"this team is better than these teams." So, who really are the best programs? Well, luckily for you, I went ahead and did a little bit of research, looked through 71 different programs from 1999-2000 through 2018-2019, created a scoring system and found the Top 30 college basketball programs over the last twenty years. The points system goes from overall wins, to NCAA Tourney appearances to national titles. I would like to thank everyone at btownbanners.com for their input on the scoring system used for this project. Now, before we get to the list, I'll show you how the scoring card worked.
Overall wins= 0.5 points
35+ wins in a season= 3.5 points
30-34 wins= 3.0 points
25-29 wins= 2.5 points
20-24 wins= 2.0 points
Conference Titles= 3.5 points
Conference Tourney Titles= 1.5 points
NIT Appearances= 0.5 points
NIT Championships= 1.5 points
NCAA Tourney Appearances= 2.0 points
Sweet Sixteens= 3.0 points
Elite Eights= 5.0 points
Final Fours= 7.0 points
Runner-up= 9.0 points
National Champions= 11.0 points
*Vacated wins are not counted into points.
All scores will be added together and divided by twenty. So now lets get to the teams.
The Top Ten
It is only fair to break the Top 10 off from the rest for a couple reasons: 1. People like visually seeing the "hierarchy" of the best of the list. 2. These teams are the only ten out of all 71 that scored 20+ points.
1. Kansas- 30.35
2. Duke- 28.30
3. North Carolina- 27.75
4. Kentucky- 26.60
5. Gonzaga- 26.18
5. Michigan State- 26.18
7. Florida- 23.40
8. Connecticut- 22.75
9. Arizona- 21.28
10. Wisconsin- 20.88
Everyone Else
11. Villanova- 19.93
12. Butler- 19.68
13. Xavier- 18.88
14. UCLA- 18.58
15. Ohio State- 17.35
16. Texas- 17.28
17. Syracuse- 17.10
18. Maryland- 16.80
18. Oregon- 16.80
20. Cincinnati- 16.78
21. Michigan- 16.60
22. VCU- 16.55
23. Illinois- 16.38
23. Oklahoma- 16.38
25. Memphis- 16.28
25. Pittsburgh- 16.28
27. Utah State- 16.23
28. Wichita State- 16.15
29. Davidson- 15.80
30. Virginia- 15.45
Notables
I am going to include these teams because they are some bigger schools you would expect to be higher, had many vacated wins or are small schools that you'd be surprised to see score so high.
Murray State- 15.05
New Mexico State- 14.50
Dayton- 14.35
Indiana- 14.00
Louisville- 13.95
Baylor- 12.68
Florida State- 11.68
*If you find any teams that should be included in the Top 30, please message on Twitter(@TheTopicTalk or @XavierHarkness).