What basketball schools pretend to be soccer schools?

college football

Our highly advanced formula will reveal the truth. (You’re welcome, John Calipari.)

Determining what a “football school” or “basketball school” is is an imprecise science. Ancient traditions often determine – not the victories and losses – whether the hearts of most fans belong to an iron grate or to a hardwood. Culturally, Florida has not stopped being a football school during its time last extension Sub-par performance, Michigan didn’t even adopt the school basketball personality as its men’s team Make multiple final fours in the 2010s (and Football faltered). Kentucky where men’s basketball coach John Calipari Recent headlines For clear speaking, it’s not a football school – though Impressive Emission For wild cats on Saturdays in recent years.

But at some point, excellence on the field or on the field supersedes culture, and that point is now. To find a definitive answer to what is a football school and what is a basketball school, we rank 65 currently the power of five Schools that use a points based system Elo ratings In soccer, men’s basketball and women’s basketball since 2001.¹ Points are assigned to a specific sport based on the team’s average Elo rating during a given year, with full weights associated with football and half weights attached to both men’s and women’s basketball.2 “Football School” got at least half of its total points from soccer, and “Basketball School” got at least half of its points from basketball. In total, that gives us 36 soccer schools — or schools that got at least half of their points from soccer — and 29 basketball schools.

The top five spots on the grid may not have been a surprise: Oklahoma, Louisiana State, Ohio State, Georgia and Alabama are among the most popular brands in college sports. In men’s basketball, the top five are traditional props (Kansas, Duke, Kentucky, Michigan State and North Carolina); Similarly, on the women’s side, current and former powersteachers Baylor, Stanford, Tennessee, Duke and Notre Dame garnered the most points.³

However, some of these schools do well in all areas. Ohio State, for example, ranks first overall on points overall, thanks not only to a perennial contender for the national title in the horseshoe but also consistent runs on hardwood — including two of four men’s team finals at 2007 And the 2012. Notre Dame has been a hit in both sports as well, featuring in several playoffs and the New Year’s Six Nations Championship in football with its most popular women’s basketball teams – which included the winners of the Epic National Championship In 2018 – and a fairly consistent championship team on the men’s part. It should be noted that in perhaps the most surprising finding in this entire exercise, the Irish were rated “school basketball” by our system – 53.6 percent of their total points came from hardwood. (Sorry, Knut Rockn.)

Of course, not all schools take the same balanced approach. For a counterexample, you need look no further than Durham, North Carolina, where Duke Football has been dead last in the Elo football average four times and in the bottom 10 a total of 13 times since 2001. Meanwhile, The legendary Duke’s men’s basketball program bore the brunt with the top 10 average Elo players every year but one, and the women’s program enjoyed its continual scaling from the top 10 rankings from 2002 to 2015. Although Alabama basketball has made a comeback in the Recent years – men’s team Contribute to an unforgettable athletic moderation Last fall, by beating No. 3 Gonzaga as the soccer team won the SEC game, while the women’s team made their NCAA debut in nearly two decades in 2021 — soccer has a reputation for bringing bacon home to Tuscaloosa.

Here are the most unbalanced schools according to our method, based on who has the biggest absolute difference In points between football and basketball:

However, these designations are not static. Think Florida: The Seminoles bounced back from their lean late years on the courts with national success in the early 2010s to reclaim football school status. But a good track record in men’s and women’s basketball since the mid-2010s has flipped FSU into school basketball again. Michigan, which maintained a strong foothold in the football field in the later years of the Lloyd Carr era, has seen a roughly equal split between basketball and soccer over the past 14 years — and basketball still accounts for nearly half of its points share in 2021. , when the soccer team finally started to deliver on its massive promise. And Miami, once The jewel in the crown of college footballhas faded back and forth from football to basketball since 2007.

Although fans don’t consider any of these programs to be “basketball schools,” the numbers indicate that their lesser-known teams have performed at a higher level than football teams in recent decades. In other words, traditional nomenclature can change faster than we think. So perhaps Calipari should watch his back: Even if Kentucky isn’t likely to become a school football with history and tradition anytime soon, its recent success at the Iron Net could eventually shift the balance of power in Lexington.