Basketball Times Magazine runs a special report every five years that they call The Best Of The Best. Top Gun references aside, the report ranks only those programs who have won two-thirds of their games over the previous ten years. Duke came out on top in both the 1997 and 2002 rankings, and is once again top dog in the 2007 rankings.
What's more interesting is that our own Creighton Bluejays are ranked #7 in the 2007 list. Here's the top ten, which is a virtual who's-who of college basketball.
1. Duke
2. North Carolina
3. Florida
4. Stanford
5. Gonzaga
5. Michigan State (Tie)
7. Creighton
8. Kansas
9. Xavier
10. Illinois
I can hear the whiners in Lincoln already. There's no way a MVC team belongs ahead of Kansas and Illinois, and right behind Michigan State. Clearly the magazine's rankings are flawed! This is horrible! Boycott this rag! Or alternatively: Ha ha, Creighton is the only team in the Top Ten without a Sweet 16 appearance! Ha ha!
Well, this is not an unscientific poll voted on by people who might be swayed (although that may actually work against Creighton, in all honesty). The list is the average of five rankings:
Winning Percentage: Creighton had a .709 winning percentage the last decade, good for 18th in the nation.
NBA Players: Creighton has placed two players into the NBA in the last decade (Sir Rodney Buford and Kyle Korver). That ties them for 20th in the country.
Freshman Graduation Rate: Creighton has graduated 67% of their freshman recruits, which is fourth in America. SIU haters will note the Salukis actually finished ahead of the Jays here, graduating 73%.
Academic Peer Assessment Score (as listed in US News & World Report): This is a complex number, combining a program's graduation rate with the perceived value of its diploma. Creighton finished fifth in the country, with a 4.1 on a 5.0 scale.
Program Cleanliness: A panel of 10 writers from Basketball Times and the United States Basketball Writers Association ranks the head coaches on the way their run their ship. No surprise here, Dana Altman's Jays come in third with 230 points (290 is the highest possible).
Average all of these scores out, and Creighton has been the seventh best program in America over the past decade. Not bad for a mid-major in a league many people still insist on looking down upon, is it?
You bet.
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