6. Indiana 528
Five national championships, eight final fours, and 71 NBA draft picks set the Indiana Hoosiers apart from most programs. The thing that most people do not know is that the Hoosiers won two national championships before Bobby Knight. Obviously, the NCAA's winningest coach is the biggest name in Hoosier basketball history. Knight picked up 661 of his record 901 wins as a Head Coach at Indiana. The Hoosier basketball program has had some great college players but have not produced a bunch of NBA superstars. Although, they did produce one of the NBA's 50 greatest players, Isiah Thomas. Thomas went on to lead the Detroit Pistons to back to back NBA championships. He also coached the Indiana Pacers and New York Knicks. Thomas is now at Florida International University as a Head Coach. Even though the Hoosiers have fallen on hard times it's hard to imagine them being down forever with new Head Coach Tom Crean. Crean did a great job at Marquette and has been short on talent since taking over for the embattled Kelvin Samson. All that being said the Hoosiers are one of the greatest college basketball programs in the history of college basketball.
Before Coach K the Blue Devils were good and after Coach K the Blue Devils have been great. Duke was off the charts in almost every category in the all-time greats formula. They have won three national championships (1991, 1992, 2001, 2010) which ranks behind only UCLA, Kentucky, Indiana and North Carolina. They are tied with Kansas. The Blue Devils have went to 15 final fours and appeared in the national championship game 1964, 1978, 1990, 1991, 1992,1994, 1999, 2001, and 2010. The Blue Devils are credited with 74 NBA draft picks, but it's not about NBA draft picks with this team. It's about college success. They might have the greatest coach in college basketball history. Coach K has the three national championships as mentioned before, but he also has led the USA Basketball team to the gold medal. The US had not won the gold medal since the 2000 olympics. He's the best of the best. Names like: Grant Hill, Christian Laettner, Corey Maggette, and Elton Brand just to name a few have played for the Blue Devils. This program does not seem to be losing any steam. Many people thought they were on the decline and they are one of two of the top 10 all-time programs to be in this year's final four. Even though they are not as close to program number four in the formula they are definitely putting distance between themselves and Indiana
No comments:
Post a Comment