Marquette makes Basketball Times semi-decennial analytical ranking for first time

Every five years Basketball Times weighs through who the top basketball programs are in the country based on a 10 year analysis of winning percentage, "cleanliness" of the program, graduation rates, players in the NBA and academic reputation (using US News and World Report), and head coaching ranking. 

Thirty-three schools made the list this year with a minimum requirement of winning 2/3 of their games in the last ten years. Thanks to the efforts of Buzz Williams and Tom Crean the last 10 years, Marquette has qualified on the top programs list for the very first time in this evaluation.  MU finished 23rd overall while Duke finished 1st for the third straight time. 

The top ten overall programs ranked as follows:

1. Duke
2. North Carolina
3. Gonzaga
4. Davidson
5. Wisconsin-madison
6. Butler
7. Michigan State
8. Kansas
9. BYU
10. Creighton

You will note some heavy weight programs are not listed here and the simple reason is because they had some bad years that pulled them out.  The top criteria is a requirement to win 2/3 of your games during the previous 10 seasons.  UCLA, Indiana, etc are out for that reason.  Kentucky suffers because of some poor seasons prior to Calipari returning. Louisville, for the first time since 1997, is back in the rankings. Others, like UCONN, took a major hit because of coaching change which diluted their ranking in one of the six criteria.

Marquette rankings in each category:

• Buzz Williams ranked 20th out of 33 coaches.  Legendary coach Stew Morrill finished 15th.
• MU 28th best winning % of the 33 programs
• MU 11th of 33 for players in the NBA
• MU 19th of 33 in graduation rate
• MU 21st of 33 in Academic reputation
• MU 20th of 33 in "Cleanliness" of programm

Good read if you have the time.