The Real Prestige Rankings: Part XI

This is the eleventh and final part in my series of Prestige Rankings for NCAA Basketball over the past 24 years. This is a summary of the previous ten articles, and allows you to see the rankings all in one spot. However, it does not have the explanation and detail of the earlier articles.

My rankings are a more accurate and simplistic approach to the Prestige Rankings released by ESPN several weeks ago.

Conferences:

Here are conferences, in order of rank, along with their average point totals:

1. ACC – 435.00
2. Big Ten – 399.91
3. Big East – 366.81
4. SEC – 338.42
5. Big 12 – 321.67
6. Pac 10 – 280.20
7. Atlantic 10 – 148.71
8. Mountain West – 148.33
9. Conference USA – 106.83
10. West Cost Conference – 72.50
11. Missouri Valley – 68.60
12. Horizon – 54.00
13. WAC – 45.11
14. MAC – 38.00
15. Sun Belt – 33.54
16. CAA – 30.17
17. Patriot League – 24.63
T-18. MAAC – 18.00
T-18. Ivy League – 18.00
20. Southern – 16.36
21. Big Sky – 14.44
22. Big West – 13.33
23. Ohio Valley – 10.18
24. MEAC – 9.73
25. Big South – 7.63
26. SWAC – 7.50
27. America East – 5.78
28. Southland – 5.33
29. Atlantic Sun – 4.67
30. Northeast – 3.64
31. Summit – 1.20
32. Independents – 0.00

Top 50 Teams:

Here are the top 50 teams, listed in order with cumulative point totals over the past 24 seasons (rank, team, ESPN rank, point total)

1. Duke (1) – 1,135
2. North Carolina (3) – 1,106
3. Kansas (2) – 1,076
4. Kentucky (4) – 978
5. Arizona (5) – 749
6. UCLA (7) – 731
7. Connecticut (6) – 724
8. Syracuse (9) – 713
9. Georgetown (T-10) – 690
10. Michigan State (T-10) – 655
11. Louisville (T-14) – 637
12. Texas (18) – 632
13. Illinois (23) – 616
14. Maryland (28) – 601
15. Indiana (13) – 587
16. Oklahoma (12) – 576
17. Arkansas (T-14) – 563
18. Purdue (29) – 546
19. Temple (20) – 538
20. Oklahoma State (32) – 506
21. Cincinnati (19) – 504
22. Florida (21) – 500
23. Alabama (T-35) – 484
24. Michigan (22) – 475
25. Stanford (25) – 466
26. Memphis (T-14) – 460
27. UNLV (8) – 453
28. Utah (24) – 448
29. Georgia Tech (33) – 446
30. Ohio State (27) – 440
31. Villanova (T-30) – 425
32. Xavier (17) – 418
33. Wake Forest (T-37) – 416
34. Iowa (49) – 404
T-35. Seton Hall (51) – 378
T-35. Pittsburgh (T-43) – 378
T-37. Wisconsin (T-43) – 364
T-37. Boston College (T-70) – 364
39. North Carolina State (52) – 358
40. St. John’s (T-35) – 356
41. Gonzaga (26) – 318
42. Missouri (T-37) – 316
43. LSU (T-40) – 314
44. Auburn (T-90) – 310
45. Iowa State (T-57) – 304
46. Tulsa (39) – 302
T-47. Virginia (T-70) – 278
T-47. Notre Dame (T-86) – 278
49. Mississippi State (T-86) – 252
50. West Virginia (67) – 248

Summary:

If you compare my rankings to the ESPN rankings, I think it is quite clear that my simplistic scoring method was very comparable to the more complicated ESPN method. In fact, I believe my scoring system has corrected for the questionable areas in the ESPN rankings.

The weaker teams that were ranked highly in ESPN’s rankings because of playing against weaker competition are not ranked as highly in my version. As a result, the above average teams in the major conferences are all ranked more favorably in my rankings because they were pushed behind small conference teams in ESPN’s version.

Looking at the team rankings, most of the large rank differences come from the teams from weaker conferences (UNLV, Gonzaga, Tulsa, etc.) and from the more average teams in major conferences (Auburn, Notre Dame, Mississippi State, Boston College, etc.).

Please look back to my previous articles in this series for more detail on the teams and conferences.