Jeez, I hate the word 'winningest', but anyway, I'm pretty sure this includes last season. Thought some of you might be interested (and, I admit, as a Kentucky fan and graduate, lists like this make me happy)

1. KENTUCKY...1849
2. NORTH CAROLINA...1808
3. KANSAS...1801
4. DUKE...1706
5. ST. JOHN'S...1662
6. TEMPLE...1608
7. SYRACUSE...1602
8. PENN...1555
9. INDIANA...1540
10. NOTRE DAME...1529
11. UCLA...1520
12. OREGON STATE...1517
13. UTAH...1492
14. PRINCETON...1475
15. WESTERN KENTUCKY...1466
16. ILLINOIS...1458
17. PURDUE...1453
18. WASHINGTON...1444
19. CINCINNATI...1440
20. ARIZONA...1438
21. LOUISVILLE...1431
22. N.C. STATE...1419
T23. TEXAS...1412
T23. WEST VIRGINIA...1412
25. BRADLEY...1409

I like these lists. It hepls to give a sense of history and remind us that schools like Oregon State, Washington, St. Johns, West Virginia and even Notre Dame have had richly successful basketball programs. Everybody knows about Kentucky, Kansas, North Carolina and Duke. A bit surprised UCLA was as far down the list. I'd have expected them to be up higher.

I was also surprised to see UCLA outside the top 10 when I typed it up, George. I assumed that since they had won so many championships that they would have been higher. Must have had at least a couple of poor seasons thrown in there, or maybe their program didn't start as early as some of the others. I know UK just recently made a big deal out of their 100th season of hoops, but I couldn't tell you when any other schools started up.

Also, even though UCLA had all those championships, remember that the season was shorter, there was no Pac-10 tourney, and the NCAA tourney was shorter. Those add up. And they had some bad seasons.

I was surprised to see both Penn and Princeton that high. There must be some real doormats in the Ivy, even though I know they were both real contenders in the past.

Kevin

I just read an article on John Wooden recently. If I recall it correctly, UCLA had basically no program until he built it. They had no history of success.

And the Ivy League schools have been around a long time, don't forget.

If you love to dig through mountains and mountains of stats and records, you should enjoy The Official 2004 Men's NCAA Records . There's also the pages @ Infoplease.com

[ November 27, 2003, 09:42 PM: Message edited by: gayhawk ]