So the first season of my Bearcat Basketball fandom has come to an end and I know I have a lot of love for this school and really enjoy watching these teams. I have noticed a large disconnect on this board between what the expectations for this school should be, if Mick is a good coach or not, and if we are still an improving program, plateauing program, or a declining program. I think the best way to objectively look at our program and decide how good, mediocre or bad it is is to figure out what all board members and posters believe to be our peer schools. That way i could look up and compare things like tournament, season, and conference records, recruiting rankings, facilities, and weeks in the ap top 25. Hopefully i can get a lot of responses as I would love to use everyone's responses to try to find where UC should be placed among other schools and hope to be able to set realistic expectations for the team next year. please as many people comment as possible as I would like to be able to create a list comparing UC to most of the school's that people believe to be our equal.

You have to immediately rule out all P5 and go from there. 15 years ago I would have said Louisville, Pitt and Memphis. Now it's more Memphis, Houston, Dayton, Temple and UConn.

...are...

(03-19-2017 11:43 PM)rath v2.0 Wrote:  ...are...

well I am gonna blame that on the pain from the soul crushing defeat...

Is the question who are our peers? Or should be our peers? I think the latter is what we need to discuss.

Assuming we don't have access to P5 resources, I think we're looking at UConn, Villanova, Gonzaga, Butler, Wichita State, etc.

I'm not mentioning Xavier - we should aspire to be higher than that.

It's tough to really say who our peers are right now, because we are an elite top 10-15 all time basketball program temporarily stuck in a garbage, two bit, amateur-hour conference that, at times, seems to intentionally sabotage us when it comes to scheduling, seeding, tournament locations, and game officiating (quite possibly because we have the best chance of moving back to the P5). It hampers our ability to recruit and attract national attention throughout the regular season.

In addition, we seem to be stuck with a coach that will keep us competitive, but never elite.

Programs I think we could use as a measuring stick right now are Louisville, Wichita State, and Gonzaga... Louisville because we have historically had at least as much potential as them in basketball as well as football, and it will be interesting to see how much farther a superior coach and higher-paying conference will take them.

Wichita State and Gonzaga are good to compare ourselves against because, like us, they are great programs in terrible conferences. Since conference situations and resources are more or less comparable, they give us an opportunity to determine how much of a difference coaching makes. That includes not only in-game coaching, but also how they recruit and engage the fan base.

There are probably dozens of schools that we could use as measuring sticks in some way or another in the current climate. Since the mid 20th century, however, I think our overall peers would be the class of programs right below Kansas, Kentucky, UCLA, Indiana, and North Carolina.

(03-19-2017 11:57 PM)crex043 Wrote:  Is the question who are our peers? Or should be our peers? I think the latter is what we need to discuss.

Assuming we don't have access to P5 resources, I think we're looking at UConn, Villanova, Gonzaga, Butler, Wichita State, etc.

I'm not mentioning Xavier - we should aspire to be higher than that.

Most people would consider the BE a power conference in basketball. They pay out more than the AAC, with no FB programs to support. Check out Sagarin's conference rankings; the BE is 3rd or 4th, not 6th.

(03-19-2017 11:57 PM)crex043 Wrote:  Is the question who are our peers? Or should be our peers? I think the latter is what we need to discuss.

Assuming we don't have access to P5 resources, I think we're looking at UConn, Villanova, Gonzaga, Butler, Wichita State, etc.

I'm not mentioning Xavier - we should aspire to be higher than that.

We had our chance tonight to at least join XU in the Sweet Sixteen. Didn't happen. Yeah, we beat them this year, but so what?

As a baseline here is the numbers for UC

1. 133 weeks in the AP poll since 2000 23rd most weeks

2. Recruiting Rankings were hard to find and not very well defined so I averaged out the top 20 players for UC since 2000 .9512 247 composite.

3. 11-13 tournament record since 2000 5-7 With Mick as the head coach

4. facilities is a lot more objective and is a hard way to compare schools but the shoe was not a very nice place to play until the new upgrades.

5. 381-193 Record since 2000 with a .663 win percentage pretty good considering the ****** late 2000's.

Here is the numbers for Xavier since(2000)

1. 97 weeks in the AP pool for 37th on the list

2. Recruiting has been better than us with avg top 20 at .9614

3. 20-15 assuming they lose their next game

4. 408-166 for a .710 win pct.

following the numbers While UC has a much greater history Xavier and UC have been very equal programs since 2000.

Also for this conference should not matter as I am looking at the expectations for the school based off win Pct and tourney performance. we should be comparing ourselves to some Power conference schools because In Basketball our expectations should be expectations of a Power school.

(03-20-2017 12:25 AM)bearcat2020 Wrote:  Here is the numbers for Xavier since(2000)

1. 97 weeks in the AP pool for 37th on the list

2. Recruiting has been better than us with avg top 20 at .9614

3. 20-15 assuming they lose their next game

4. 408-166 for a .710 win pct.

following the numbers While UC has a much greater history Xavier and UC have been very equal programs since 2000.

I would argue that Xavier has been a better program since 2000, and it's not even really that close.

Here is the numbers for Memphis since 2000

1. 131 weeks in the AP top 25 for 24th overall

2. .9893 avg of top 20 recruits. damn Calipari is good at that.

3. 16-10 NCAA tournament record

4. 438-155 total record .738 win pct

#3 is the only stat that matters

I was looking at Final Four teams in the recent past, and it struck me how many schools have been since our last appearance in 1992. So for the hell of it, I decided to spend 15 minutes compiling that list:

North Carolina (9) - 1993, 1995, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2005, 2008, 2009, 2016
Kentucky (8) - 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015
Michigan State (7) - 1999, 2000, 2001, 2005, 2009, 2010, 2015
Duke (6) - 1994, 1999, 2001, 2004, 2010, 2015
Kansas (5) - 1993, 2002, 2003, 2008, 2012
Connecticut (5) - 1999, 2004, 2009, 2011, 2014
Florida (5) - 1994, 2000, 2006, 2007, 2014
UCLA (4) - 1995, 2006, 2007, 2008
Syracuse (4) - 1996, 2003, 2013, 2016
Louisville (3) - 2005, 2012, 2013
Arizona (3) - 1994, 1997, 2001
Wisconsin (3) - 2000, 2014, 2015
Villanova (2) - 2009, 2016
Ohio State (2) - 2007, 2012
Butler (2) - 2010, 2011
Maryland (2) - 2001, 2002
Oklahoma (2) - 2002, 2016
Oklahoma State (2) - 1995, 2004
Arkansas (2) - 1994, 1995
*Michigan (2) - 1993 (vacated), 2013
West Virginia - 2010
Wichita State - 2013
VCU - 2011
*Memphis - 2008 (vacated)
Georgetown - 2007
LSU - 2006
George Mason - 2006
Illinois - 2005
Georgia Tech - 2004
Texas - 2003
Marquette - 2003
Indiana - 2001
Utah - 1998
Stanford - 1998
*Minnesota - 1997 (vacated)
Mississippi State - 1996
*Massachusetts - 1996 (vacated)

Obviously there are some great programs who haven't made a Final Four -- Gonzaga and Xavier come to mind. But when you look at the shear amount of teams who have made it, several of which are only marginal basketball programs relatively speaking, it is frustrating that we haven't found more luck in the tournament.

(03-20-2017 12:50 AM)Billy_Bearcat Wrote:  #3 is the only stat that matters

Agreed.

(03-19-2017 11:21 PM)bearcat2020 Wrote:  So the first season of my Bearcat Basketball fandom has come to an end and I know I have a lot of love for this school and really enjoy watching these teams. I have noticed a large disconnect on this board between what the expectations for this school should be, if Mick is a good coach or not, and if we are still an improving program, plateauing program, or a declining program. I think the best way to objectively look at our program and decide how good, mediocre or bad it is is to figure out what all board members and posters believe to be our peer schools. That way i could look up and compare things like tournament, season, and conference records, recruiting rankings, facilities, and weeks in the ap top 25. Hopefully i can get a lot of responses as I would love to use everyone's responses to try to find where UC should be placed among other schools and hope to be able to set realistic expectations for the team next year. please as many people comment as possible as I would like to be able to create a list comparing UC to most of the school's that people believe to be our equal.

at this point our peers are teams at the top of the AAC and A10....thats how we are viewed now. A top program in a mid major conference.

Taking the entire athletic department across the board, Temple is not only our peer, but our doppleganger.

Our football is down (theirs is up but limited). Their basketball is down (ours is up but limited). The Olympic sports are mediocre at both schools. Both schools are in major league sports cities. Both schools are very high research.

Considering the program received a self-imposed overhaul in 2006, completely derailing any chance of success for three seasons, I do find the 381-193 record to be particularly remarkable. Although I'll take 30 wins anytime, I do agree with others, that this needs to parlay into more tournament success, sooner than later.

2020, excellent research and welcome

This thread poses a great question. UC basketball operates in the Twilight Zone today; still the victim of an ugly Big East divorce that destroyed the greatest basketball conference ever that simultaneously separated us from our best rivals and peers. So we're now in foster care; waiting and hoping for placement in a P5. The AAC is a somewhat dysfunctional family with no established tradition; little pride, passion or brand identity.

So I'd suggest we're still a historically great basketball program--lots of measurables pointing to deep tradition and national championships. But our present state is "good to very good" but not a "great" performance level.

Peers should be of great concern. We have blue blood programs within 150 miles, all of which we're told, refuse to schedule UC. So I suppose we're forced to benchmark against our high profile AAC foes: UCONN first and foremost has enjoyed elite success over the past two decades. Memphis has resources; SMU made noise this season but can't match our tradition and staying power. So I suppose some other peers are very good (but not the best) P5 programs seeking to break through to the next level: North Carolina State, Iowa State, Minnesota, Cal?