team of the 2000s – Rush The Court

Team of the 2000s: Wrap-Up and Honorable Mention

rtmsf — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 02:59:08 +0000

Direct Links to the Top Ten.

1. UNC 2. Kansas 3. Florida 4. Duke 5. Michigan St. 6. UConn 7. UCLA 8. Memphis 9. Syracuse 10. Maryland

Intro. Welcome back. We wanted to use this post to wrap up the loose ends with an endeavor such as this one. Let’s talk about our methodology, the teams who were easiest/most difficult to place, the Memphis quandary, and the teams who were on the outside of the top ten looking in. As always, feel free to disagree in the comments.

Defending Our Methodology. One of the more interesting things about releasing these rankings [...]

Team of the 2000s: #1 – North Carolina

rtmsf — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 06:13:41 +0000

Ed. Note: check the category team of the 2000s for our other entries in this feature.

And so we reach the pinnacle. Ladies and gentlemen, prep yourselves, as this will come as a complete shocker… but your #1 program of the last decade is the North Carolina Tar Heels. We know that you were probably thinking it was Gonzaga or Pittsburgh, but alas, the fine programs from Washington and Pennsylvania will have to wait another decade for the RTC Good Hoopskeeping seal of approval.

Be sure to check back Monday as we’ll do some clean-up on [...]

Team of the 2000s: #2- Kansas

zhayes9 — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 00:10:42 +0000

Ed. Note: Check the category team of the 2000s for our other entries in this feature.

Stepping away from this decade’s rankings for a moment, one could make the argument that the runner-up recipient on our list would top a list of the greatest college basketball programs of all-time. Sure, UCLA and Kentucky fans may quibble, but the combination of legendary players (Lovelette, Chamberlain, Manning, Pierce), pantheon coaches (Naismith, Allen, Brown, Williams) and an arena that every true college basketball fan should visit (Allen Fieldhouse) could surely provide enough ammunition to make an argument to head an [...]

Team of the 2000s: #3 – Florida

jstevrtc — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 04:54:38 +0000

Ed. Note: Check the category team of the 2000s for our other entries in this feature.

As we move into the top three teams of the 2000s, we reach rarefied air. The team we review today at the third spot was one of the absolute toughest to place, for reasons that will be described below.

#3 — Florida

Overview. When Billy Donovan arrived at Florida in 1996 he brought with him all of two years of head coaching experience, a mere 35-20 record as the head bull at Marshall. In its previous 81 [...]

Team of the 2000s: #4 – Duke

nvr1983 — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 05:29:05 +0000

Ed. Note: Check the category team of the 2000s for our other entries in this feature.

As we mentioned in our earlier “Team of the 2000s” posts, we felt that the top-tier programs fell into a few clear clusters. There was some debate amongst the RTC braintrust about where certain teams fell within those clusters so we can understand if you disagree with where a team is ranked (that’s what the comment section is for). Teams in the top five either have made it to every NCAA tournament this decade (a sign of at least being respectable every [...]

Team of the 2000s: #5- Michigan State

zhayes9 — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 20:24:56 +0000

Ed. Note: Check the category team of the 2000s for our other entries in this feature.

With the first five teams of our Team of the 2000s countdown here at Rush the Court out of the way, we can truly delve into the class of the decade. These are teams that didn’t just experience a couple years of peak success, but sustained prominence and positive standing throughout the ten seasons that are being considered. These are programs that first pop into the head of basketball fans when considering the cream of the crop not only in recent years, but [...]

Team of the 2000s: #6 – UConn

nvr1983 — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 04:31:12 +0000

Ed. Note: Check the category team of the 2000s for our other entries in this feature.

As we mentioned in our earlier posts, when we were putting together our list of the top teams of the past decade it became pretty clear that there were definable clusters of teams meaning that a solid case could be made for moving a team up or down a few positions depending on how much weight you put on various elements of a program’s resume (overall excellence versus a big tournament run or 10 years of excellence versus 1 year of [...]

Team of the 2000s: #7 – UCLA

rtmsf — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 04:50:37 +0000

Ed. Note: check the category team of the 2000s for our other entries in this feature.

As we were going through the list of candidates for the top programs of the 2000s, we found that teams tended to fall into similar statistical cohorts. Among the top twelve programs, we found three such delineations where teams within each group were largely indistinguishable, and our discussions over rankings got more intense as a result. The group involving #8-#12 was one such cohort, and as we’ve noted in the comments, the rankings within that group came down to slicing hairs. The next group where [...]

Team of the 2000s: #8 – Memphis

jstevrtc — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 04:52:33 +0000

Ed. Note: check the category team of the 2000s for our other entries in this feature.

We already know that this selection is going to cause some consternation among teams that weren’t selected as high. It’s ok. We get it. The selection process ultimately comes down to a matter of taste, and Memphis blended with our palates a little better than the others. If you disagree, let us know…

#8 – Memphis

Overview. In the period from 2000-2009, few college basketball programs “felt” bigger than Memphis. John Calipari showed up to run [...]

Team of the 2000s: #9 – Syracuse

rtmsf — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 04:54:38 +0000

Ed. Note: check the category team of the 2000s for our other entries in this feature.

And we’re back with the second installment of our Team of the 2000s feature. Just to refresh the schedule we anticipate, we’ll be putting up #10-#6 this week, and #5-#1 next week. Yesterday we picked Maryland as our tenth selection (over Gonzaga, Pitt, and several others) and we’re declaring today that the ninth best program of the 2000s is none other than the Syracuse Orange… let the flames begin.

#9 – Syracuse

Overview. This selection will be one [...]

Team of the 2000s: #10 – Maryland

rtmsf — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 01:42:11 +0000

Ed. Note: check the category team of the 2000s for our other entries in this feature.

We are now seriously in the dog days of summer. The July recruiting period is over, coaches are on vacation, and the college basketball news feeds have dried up like Hillary Clinton in Kenya. Even Congress has taken the month off, meaning that RTC has been left thinking up new ways to entertain ourselves while we wait for the cool autumn breezes to arrive. One idea we’ve been sitting on since the end of the 2009 NCAA Tournament has been to evaluate the top ten programs [...]