sg Speaks: ESPN Says Arkansas Has Some Prestige
The other day, as I was flipping clicking around ESPN(.go).com, I stumbled across a new pseudo-feature story about college basketball prestige. ESPN was slowing releasing their prestige ranking of all 300 universities based on their strange point scale. Historical data was gathered starting with the 1984-85 season (when the NCAA Tournament expanded to 64 teams) and aggregated it to compile their list.
A few years ago when Stan Heath was being courted by Arkansas, and then more recently with Dana Altman and John Pelphrey, there was talk of Arkansas basketball being one of the top 10 programs to coach for. I think that made us all chuckle a little bit, but when you really thought about it, you could almost make sense of it. But surely ESPN wouldn’t feel the same way, would they?
I started by looking through the list ranking 51-300, thinking that ESPN would somehow chump us and place us low. We weren’t there. I thought to myself the top 50 isn’t bad, right? Then I looked at #s 41-50, nothing. I then re-checked the 51-300 to make sure I didn’t miss us. I even did a word find and found nothing related to Arkansas but Arkansas State and UALR. Moving on to 31-40, nada. Surely we would be in 21-30, right? Wrong.
Today, ESPN revealed their list of Most Prestigious Schools, numbers 11-20. Guess who came in squarely at #15 (tied with Louisville and Memphis)? That’s right, the good ol’ Arkansas Razorbacks. Wow.
What landed us there? Well, they don’t tell us exactly how we scored, but I did some searching on the innerlux, and here’s the math I get:
- One national title (1994) +25
- One title game loss (1995) +20
- One national semifinal loss (1990) +15
- One Elite Eight loss (1991) +10
- Four 30+ wins in a season +20
- Two Sweet Sixteen losses (1993 & 1996) +10
- Five best W-L records in conference’s regular season +25
- Four conference tournament titles (1989, 1990, 1991 & 2000) +12
- Six second round losses (1985, 1989, 1992, 1998, 1999 & 2008) +18
- Two Top Ten NBA Draft picks (Todd Day and Joe Johnson) +4
- 12 seasons of at least 20 wins +12
- 17 NCAA tournament berths +17
- Two AP second-team All-Americans (Todd Day and Corliss Williamson x 2) +6
- Two AP third-team All-Americans (Todd Day and Lee Mayberry) +2
- One NCAA first-round win as a 12-16 seed (1996 as a 12 seed) +2
- Two postseason NIT berths (1987 & 1997) +2
- Four losing seasons (ESPN only noted 3) -12
…188 points. I’m probably missing something somewhere — that 1984-85 season cutoff is a bit difficult to navigate sometimes in the databanks. But, as far as I can tell that’s what we got and here’s what we DIDN’T get points for:
- AP first-team All-American … 3
- NIT title … 2
- NCAA first-round loss to a 12-16 seed … -2
- Ban from NCAA tournament … -3
Ranked 15th in Basketball Prestige according to ESPN. That’s not a bad thing to tout when you’re looking for new coaches and recruits. And when it’s all boiled down, for all the turmoil that our school has gone through the last six years on the basketball court, we have an extremely rich tradition in the hoops arena. It makes me long for the Nolan glory days, but I always take the team as it’s given to me (us).
Keep it up Pel, your Hog fans are right there behind you rooting whoo-pig-sooieing you on.
Discussion
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By sg on July 25th, 2008
It shows up both ways on Google searches. In either case, I totally spelled “sooieing” incorrectly. That’s not even a word! For shame.
By jones on July 25th, 2008
Woo
By Totalbastard on July 25th, 2008
I think its “WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO”.
Although its starting to sound more like AH-wooooOOOOOOOOOO…
Whoooo sounds like ‘Hoooooooooooo’
FYI.
By WTFMB on July 25th, 2008
That’s crap! We’re WAAAAAAY better than Memphis! I could accept tied with Indiana. I don’t even mind the Louisville thing so much. But Memphis? Someone with better internets skillz than me needs to find out what our all-time record vs. Memphis/Memphis State is.
By Totalbastard on July 25th, 2008
I also thought we’d be higher.
Stan Heath made it not so.
By sg on July 25th, 2008
We would’ve been higher a few years ago, but this has nothing to do with head-to-head versus other schools. This is overall performance for teams and its players. We may have a better head-to-head record vs. Memphis, but because of the conference they play in, they’re always going to have a much better chance at good W-L records and making the tourney.
In my opinion, Memphis has always been an under-achieving school for the talent pool that cycles through there. This year I was surprised they made it as far as they did in the tourney. Calipari knows how to coach, I suppose, but for whatever reason won’t play Arkansas in the regular season. My guess, he doesn’t want to lose recruits to us (see Todd Day as an extremely dated example).
By WTFMB on July 25th, 2008
I get that the overall rankings have nothing to do with head-to-head but if there’s a tie…..come on! Throw me a bone sg!
By sg on July 25th, 2008
Yeah, I know. The page also makes this note: Ties are broken by overall winning percentage since the 1984-85 season. Go Conference USA!
By Beebs on July 25th, 2008
Ohh I get it. It’s like “sooieing batta!”……….right?
By WTFMB on July 25th, 2008
F___ da CUSA!