It's official. UK is the top basketball program of all time and Pat Forde has a problem with that (big shock)
By Staff
ESPN recently had sports statistician extraordinaire Jeff Sagarain get his computer (s) humming and come up with a ranking for the top college program of all time. Sagarin, of course, is the genius behind the Sagarin Ratings, which are used to help determine which teams get into the NCAA tournament and is part of the equation for the BCS rankings. Sagarin also developed a program which helps the Dallas Mavericks set their lineups and decide what free agents to pursue. I kid you not.
So now that we have established the legitimacy of Sagarin, we should announce the findings of his top program of all time. Finishing number one is your University of Kentucky Wildcats, ahead of UCLA, Kansas, North Carolina, and Indiana. I do admit that there are some head scratchers in Sagarin’s ratings, which have Illinois at number 6 ahead of Duke. Or Minnesota at number 14. Also interesting is the fact that he placed the Louisville Cardinals at number 11 with their two titles and the Florida Gators at 64 with their two titles.
Regardless, Sagarin has a method to his madness and seeing that his rankings validate what I know to be true, I was ready to proclaim this poll as “the truth”. But the ESPN co-horts were not going to let this go without some bashing. It’s interesting that ESPN treats the Sagarin rankings as the Holy Grail 90% of the time, but when it favors someone other than North Carolina or Duke, the ESPN-er’s go crazy.
ESPN resident Pitino lover Pat Forde weighed in on the rankings and argues that Kentucky is not worthy of the number 1 ranking and moves them down to third, behind UCLA and North Carolina. Says Forde:
Sagarin says the all-time kingpin of college basketball is Kentucky, and he says it’s not close. By his rating formula, the Wildcats are farther ahead of No. 2 UCLA than the Bruins are ahead of No. 7 Duke. The 2.24-point gap is the largest between any two teams in the entire 330-team ranking.
It’s worth noting that Sagarin’s formula counts NCAA tournament wins as double, but does not give any additional bonus for national titles, thus negating UCLA’s advantage in that category. (The Bruins have four more national titles than the Wildcats, but trail 100-99 in overall tournament wins.)
Forde then kind of goes over the edge downplaying UK as the number one program, delving slightly into a racist tinged theory and of course arguing that UK was not punished for their “NCAA rap sheet”.
But Kentucky should not be No. 1. No computer takes into account a program’s NCAA rap sheet, and the Wildcats have a long history of problems. They were given the de facto first death penalty, forbidden from intercollegiate play for the 1953-54 season. There was a point-shaving scandal. There have been multiple NCAA probations.
Kentucky also thrived for decades in an all-white league while African-Americans were taking over the game elsewhere. It’s probably not coincidence that Adolph Rupp’s long era of domination started waning as black players began to make their impact on the sport in the late 1950s and 1960s. Rupp’s last national title came in 1958, and his last Final Four ended in defeat in the famous game against all-black Texas Western in 1966.
What is interesting and perhaps proves that Pat Forde may not be able to read is the fact that the Sagarin rankings DO punish a team on probation. As it says in the first paragraph of the rankings page:
Schools that played fewer than five games against other qualified schools during a season did not qualify for that season, nor did schools that did not field teams or were on NCAA probation. A small penalty was assessed to a team’s rating for every season in which it failed to qualify.
So even with the “penalty for probation” figured in, UK was still without a doubt, the king of Sagarin’s ranking world. I just think it’s a tad bit ironic that Forde dropped UK from 1st to 3rd in his rankings and raised the dirty Cards from 11th to 7th. Not a shock but still predictable.
And with Calipari at the helm, expect UK to widen its status and the gnashing of teeth to continue from Forde’s corner table at Porcini’s.
Keep following www.http://wildcatbluenation.com for the best in Kentucky basketball and football news, rumors, and opinions. By Kentucky fans for Kentucky fans