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Should UCLA hang Final 4 Banners?

Original_Irish

Well-Known Member
Apr 27, 2010
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The old saying at UCLA is that they only hang Championship banners. It’s always a cool line to say and shows just how dominant the Bruins have been to have 11 of them.

But damn, getting to a Final 4 is pretty awesome and all other teams hang those banners. I just feel like those 2006-8 teams and this team should be remembered.
 
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They are, 11 titles tell everything we need to know.

Hardly. The champ should get their due every year, but we all know the best team doesn’t always win (it’s a single elimination tournament...), and there are plenty of other metrics. There is a reason Kentucky almost always comes out as #1 in any type of ranking that tries to quantify it.
 
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Hardly. The champ should get their due every year, but we all know the best team doesn’t always win (it’s a single elimination tournament...), and there are plenty of other metrics. There is a reason Kentucky almost always comes out as #1 in any type of ranking that tries to quantify it.

This has a lot to do with recency bias since UK was far more relevant in the recent decade, which would've been very different in mid 2000s when UCLA made 3 straight trips to final 4 while UK was irrelevant. But anyway, UCLA has 11 titles and UK has only 8, the latter would need at least 10 to be actually debatable. 11 and 8 are not even that close honestly, theres a significant disparity in the number of titles to justify that UCLA is the #1 program of all time.
 
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Hardly. The champ should get their due every year, but we all know the best team doesn’t always win (it’s a single elimination tournament...), and there are plenty of other metrics. There is a reason Kentucky almost always comes out as #1 in any type of ranking that tries to quantify it.
Winning 11 strongly suggests that it was more than a crapshoot.
 
Winning 11 strongly suggests that it was more than a crapshoot.

Didn’t even kind of say that, but okay. Kentucky has worse NCAAT stats but MUCH better consistency, and it’s my opinion they’re pretty clearly the #1 program all-time. That is a near constant in every list made, so people really shouldn’t be treating it as so controversial ... lol.
 
Didn’t even kind of say that, but okay. Kentucky has worse NCAAT stats but MUCH better consistency, and it’s my opinion they’re pretty clearly the #1 program all-time. That is a near constant in every list made, so people really shouldn’t be treating it as so controversial ... lol.
We have more NCAAT wins than any program. Titles is the only NCAAT stat we have worse stats in. 2nd in Final Fours. Most Elite 8s. Etc etc. We are the gold standard.
 
We have more NCAAT wins than any program. Titles is the only NCAAT stat we have worse stats in. 2nd in Final Fours. Most Elite 8s. Etc etc. We are the gold standard.

3rd in final 4s now. UCLA broke the tie this year.

Edit to add: I won’t argue the other points. I think UK is the top program all time.
 
UCLA had the most dominant period not just in college basketball, but probably all of sports when they won 10 titles in 12 years.

I wouldn't call them the best program ever though. Other than that period they have been great at times, but mediocre and even bad at other times. To be the best, titles should be a huge criteria and probably the biggest criteria, but it shouldn't be the only one. Take a 10 year period. In the last 10 seasons Uconn has a title in 2014 and Gonzaga has zero titles. Are we really going to say Uconn has been a better program over the last 10 seasons because they have more titles? No serious person would argue that.
 
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Why wouldn't you have a banner for each Championship. Then just a Final Four banner with multiple years on it.
 
The thing is, all but 2-3? Came under wooden/Gilbert during their steak, which is super impressive, but it’s not as impressive as had they won 1 each decade for the last 11.

Consistency matters, and it’s hard to consider UCLA number 1 all time when they are usually closer to the bubble than a top seed in the tourney. No one talks about duke uk unc Kansas andddddd UCLA. They haven’t been consistent enough Post wooden imo.

Still hard to argue with 11 nattys though

Not to take away from this years team, they had an amazing run and deserve praise.
 
If only Elite 8s mattered as much as final fours and championships. Kentucky has 10 more elite 8s at 38 than the next best program (UNC at 28). But Kentucky loses a lot of elite 8 games - just over half of them, while UNC has lost less than 1/3 of theirs.

Anyways, if you ever wonder why Kentucky is 2nd in championships and 3rd in final fours, but leads in overall NCAAT wins, that’s why. 38 elite 8s.
 
Hardly. The champ should get their due every year, but we all know the best team doesn’t always win (it’s a single elimination tournament...), and there are plenty of other metrics. There is a reason Kentucky almost always comes out as #1 in any type of ranking that tries to quantify it.
True now...Not true when UCLA won 7 straight. They were clearly the best team.
 
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You think UCLA is a better all-time program than Kentucky? Because if not, point stands.
What point? UCLA was the favorite entering every tourney during that stretch(7 straight)

1964: 26-0, ranked #1 entering the tourney. Finished 30-0
1965: 24-2, ranked #2. Beat #1 Michigan in the final. 28-2 overall.

Then came the streak....

1967; Started the season #1, and finished that way: 30-0
1968: Entered tourney #2. Beat #1 Houston, 101-69 in FF. Then #5 UNC, 78-55
1969: Started season #1, entered tourney #1, finished #1....
1970:Started season #1....Lost last game of reg season. Entered tourney #2. Beat #5 NM State and #4 Jacksonville handily to win the title.
1971: Started season #1....entered tourney # 1, won the title: 29-1
1972: Started season #1....entered tourney #1, won title: 30-0
1973: Started #1....entered tourney #1,won title: 30-0

So during their stretch of 7 straight titles, UCLA entered 6 of those #1. The one time they did not, they were #2---BUT destroyed #1 Houston in the FF.

I'd safe its safe to say that during that stretch, the BEST did in fact win the title.

MOF, only 3 times out of his 10 titles, did Wooden not enter the tourney #1...But in two of these three, UCLA eventually beat the #1 ranked team ,as the #2 team....

Note: In 1975, Woodens last title, UCLA entered the tourney ranked 2nd, BUT......the AP poll was released every week, even during the tourney. SO by the time UCLA advanced to the FF vs Louisville, they were ranked #1...

So no, your point doesn't stand....Back then, UCLA was clearly the best team.

And no, I do not think UCLA is the best CBB program off all-time. I think that belongs to Kentucky.
 
^ Nice dissertation, but I never said any UCLA championship team wasn’t the best in their seasons ... I said championships aren’t the only metrics to go by, simply stating that the best team sometimes doesn’t win it all. The point was that UCLA having the most titles is not a sufficient argument for them being the #1 program all-time, as I believe that distinction goes to Kentucky - a program with fewer titles.
 
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