I’m conflicted on this … I don’t like rankings that have Florida Basketball too high for literally a two-year span with a generational player, but also you have to eventually penalize more consistent programs like Illinois or Purdue that haven’t won it all. I think his ranking is probably good.
Titles should matter the most, but having excellent stats in other areas should be able to override that metric’s weight. For example, I don’t think there’s an intellectually serious argument for UCLA over Kentucky all-time. It always comes down to some bro repeating “TITLES” like a Pokémon.
I think the classic way people score by rounds is simply to double the points. So, the scoring would be:
Rd 64: 1
Rd 32: 2
S16: 4
E8: 8
F4: 16
CG: 32
NC: 64
But, I'm also using tiered-scoring, which I believe is appropriate, as you would want to see how many times each team advanced to the R32, S16, E8, etc. - so I thought against the traditional doubling of points by round. In that scenario, a sweet 16 team would be given 7 points (1+2+4), whereas a national champion would be rewarded with 127 points (1+2+4+8+16+32+64). A ratio of more than 18:1 seems excessive, especially when you consider a lot title teams struggle in the Round of 32 or Sweet 16.
Florida is a good example of a school with sort of a wonky history. Their first NCAA tournament appearance occurred in 1987. Absolutely nothing in the first 48 tournaments. The table on this thread, however, is dealing with the modern era (1985 - present). So, 12th doesn't seem to far-fetched for Florida. They've been in 23 of the past 35 tournaments, including 5 Final Fours. On my all-time table, they're 21st. And perhaps that is too high for a historically underachieving team.
And then you have a team like UNLV. Their first season was in 1970. There were fewer opportunities for tournament spots pre-1970 - and they didn't have to worry about negative points for 31 seasons. So, not having a D1 school for all those years may have been for their benefit.
It's always an impossible task when you're involving a subjective scoring system (which will always happen when the seasons aren't perfectly comparable). I think the important thing is try to be as reasonable as possible with the points - but, also try to include as many metrics as possible to minimize the possibility of one team gaining a distinct advantage in a category that may be weighted too heavily.
