Greatness Of Coach Rupp Can't Be Overstated; 45 Years After His Retirement Still Top 3 Coach Ever

[Indyadolph]

Here are some of the routes Coach Rupp faced in the various tournaments to reach the Final 4/win titles (Using AP rankings)

1948 #14 Columbia, #4 Holy Cross (defending NCAA Champs), #10 Baylor

1949 #14 Villanova, #4 Illinois, #2 Oklahoma A&M

1951 UR UL, #9 St John's, #5 Illinois, #4 Kansas State

1958 UK Miami, #8 Notre Dame, #5 Temple, #18 Seattle

1966 #19 Dayton, #9 Michigan, #2 Duke, #3 Texas Western

In 1961 and 1962 we faced #1 Ohio State both years in the Elite 8

Coach Rupp's last 3 years he faced in order #9, #4, #7, #2, #7, #10

Coach Rupp's teams played 48 NCAAT games and faced 35 ranked opponents; 27 were against Top 10 teams. 14 were against top 5 teams. Every single game was against a conference champion or a top 3 independent.

**Rankings from 1942 to 1948 were from ESPN's Premo Power polls because the AP started in 1949**

Great job on the research!! Bravo!!!

 

[JonathanW]

You bring up a good point that to win your conference tournament you indeed need to win 3 (sometimes 4) games. I'm not sure that helps your point though.

If the choice came down to whether it's easier for a top team in a major conference to win three straight games vs. three different conference opponents (teams which they've faced multiple times already) in three straight games, all in order to earn an invitation to the Sweet 16, that sounds pretty hard to me.

Harder, I'd venture in most cases, than beating at least one low level non-conference team in the first round and then beat a mediocre non-conference team two days later.

I'm not going to argue motivation or the fact that it's hard to predict what would happen when circumstances change. But you seem to be ignoring your own argument. You give great stats on how difficult it is for top seeds to make their way to the Sweet 16, even though those teams know they're playing in a do-or-die situation. But then you try to argue that if a team knew they were in a do-or-die situation (as they would be if they needed to win their conference tournament to be invited to the NCAA tournament) they would try harder. That's probably true, but you seem to overlook the fact that in that situation, the opponents of the favorite might also be extra motivated as well, not only to pull the upset but because that's their only path to reach the NCAAs.

Maybe (in a do-or-die situation) a team wouldn't "try harder". But they would presumably play different. You can't watch the NCAA tournament and tell me that teams don't play better then (especially on defense) than they did just a couple of weeks earlier. Coaches coach differently too. They will experiment more with rotations and plays, and rest key players more in less-meaningful games.

 

[JonathanW]

How big the tournament was at any given point in time is largely irrelvant IMO. All it means is that the focus shifts more toward how a team performs in the tournament and away from how they perform in the regular season and conference tournaments.

At the end of the day, my argument is that for any given season there's really only about 15 teams that are built to be named national champions. For a team to become champion, they need to win out over their competition.

At the end of the day the size of the tournament doesn't really matter, the team that is crowned champion still has to beat out their competition. Whether that means they need to beat out their fellow local schools for a conference title or a district nomination, from which they can enter the NCAA tournament, or whether they can receive a NCAA invite just with a winning record and have to play a few extra games in the NCAA tournament because the tournament field has expanded. (or even if they decided to expand the tournament to let everyone in). At the end of the day the champion needs to beat the competition that's put in front of them.

FWIW, the idea that it was easier to succeed in past eras because less teams were serious about basketball I think is ludicrous. As I said there's really only about 15 teams capable of winning the title and in the 1920's, 1930's, you name the decade there were certainly a sufficient number of teams to fit the bill. Many of those schools may not be household names today but there were competitive for the era.

And one of my many points, is that yes (I agree) today only about 15 teams are built to be named national champions. But 50-60-70 years ago, that list was shorter, probably only 5-10 teams.
The AP poll started in 49 & the Coaches poll started in 54 I think. From 49-79, the #1 or #2 ranked team won it 22 out of 31 years. A top 5 team won it 26 of 31 years, a top 10 team won it 30 of 31 years (I'm not sure where CCNY came from in 1950).
Comparatively, from 80-17, the #1 or #2 team has won it 16 of 38 years, a top 5 team has won it 24 of 38 years, a top 10 team has won it 30 of 38 years, and an unranked team has won it 3 times.
1-2 > 71% vs 42%
1-5 > 84% vs 63%
1-10 > 97% vs 79%
Very clearly, fewer teams had a legitimate chance at winning the tournament each season in Rupp's era than in the modern era. So playing say the #15 team is a tougher challenge now than 60 years ago.

 

[KMKAT]

Can't say I know if Rupp would be considered great today as I only saw his teams after '70. He wasn't getting his best results by that time and it had been awhile since his last title.
But that winning percentage is ridiculous and truth be told, Cal's UK winning percentage is on par. (.822 to .824)
So we're seeing some the same level of success that Rupp had, and Cal has the luxury of more games in a year.

I am going to enjoy the ride while I can w/Cal as his equivalents are a very short list. Cal has adapted a couple of times based on where he has coached and that is what makes him so great.
Rupp had a tougher time adapting but those games to NY were big in getting big name recruits and similar to the games Cal schedules in big arenas in big cities.

 

[JoeBeeHall]

If he could still get away with buying the top players? Sure he would.

If that is the case I bet he would have offered you about tree fitty .