There is an ongoing debate of which program is the greatest in the history of college basketball. There are three clear front runners and each fan base promotes their case of being the best each year. Kentucky, UCLA and North Carolina hold almost all of the NCAA basketball team records. UCLA has the most titles with 11, and Kentucky holds the most wins with 1,965. North Carolina has produced more great professional players than any other school, including the greatest player in the history of the NBA, Michael Jordan. After analyzing each team’s historical resume, it is this man’s opinion that one team stands head and shoulders above the other two. The Kentucky Wildcats are the definition of prestige, and stand alone as the greatest program of all time.
Before we get started on these three teams, let’s go ahead and wipe out any suspicions that other teams, such as Indiana, Kansas, Duke, or Louisville have a case for being the top program. Indiana has won five championships, which is actually one more than North Carolina’s four. However, in terms of wins, they are barely in the top ten. Duke and Kansas have claimed three, while Louisville has two. Kansas and Duke stand three and four on the all time wins list, but both UK and UNC are one and two on that list, and have more titles. How can you really include them in the argument?
Let’s review the Bruins case. Several teams have actually won more games than UCLA, including St. Johns and Temple. UCLA compiled all of their titles except for one in an eleven year span. From 1964 to 1975, coach John Wooden and the Bruins clearly dominated college basketball. If you take away those seasons however, UCLA wouldn’t even be considered a top ten program. They would be on par with teams such as Holy Cross or La Salle in terms of titles. Obviously you can not just take away these years, nor should you, but most of UCLA’s success came at one time, under a couple groups of special players such as Lou Alcindor and Bill Walton, while other programs such as Kentucky and North Carolina have sustained their success over a much longer period of time. Though UCLA has reached the final four each of the last three seasons, they have claimed just one title in the last 33 years. They were a one decade wonder. The Bruin’s eleven championships is the most in the college basketball, which is why they do deserve to be in the argument for the top program, but one has to question the legitimacy of those titles. There has been continuous speculation over the years of how a member of Wooden’s staff may have bent the rules more so than anyone else in that era. It took the great John Wooden sixteen years to claim his first title, and then his teams exploded, capturing ten titles in the next twelve years. There is clearly something very odd about that. Despite barely being in the top 10 in terms of wins, I’ll give UCLA the nod for the third best program of all time.
North Carolina is the second most prestigious program in the nation. They have four titles that have each come in a different decade. The school has produced many great NBA players such as Michael Jordan and James Worthy. One could actually argue they have underachieved in terms of success with the caliber of players they have brought in over the years, but having the second most wins, and claiming more titles than all but three teams is not too bad. In the last few years, the Heels have become an absolute recruiting juggernaut. We’ll see if they can capitalize on this recruiting in the near future. Each of these top programs have had a great coach which has paved the road for future success, and Dean Smith, who captured two championships, was Carolina’s. The Tar Heels may actually be the most popular program, and many people around the country view them as the top program, but Kentucky’s historical resume would beg to differ.
The top program, Kentucky has several amazing stats to boast. Four different coaches have won titles at UK. This has not been done at any other school. This shows that the tradition of Kentucky’s program is bigger than the coach, and that its athletic directors have done a great job over the years of hiring coaches. Adolph Rupp, who paved the way for Kentucky’s success won four titles. He would be in the argument for greatest coach of all time. Joe B. Hall, Rick Pitino, and Tubby Smith each won one title for the cats as well. Though Kentucky may not have produced as many NBA legends as several of the other top programs, they have produced more great college players and teams. Surprisingly the Wildcats have actually produced more NCAA All-Americans than any other program. Greats such as Tony Delk may not have had the NBA careers of players such as Michael Jordan from UNC, but Delk was arguably a better college player. Many of you may have never even heard of Delk before! Michael Jordan was only able to claim one title at UNC. He just didn’t dominate in college the way he did for the Chicago Bulls. Some players blossom at a later age than others. During their college years, however, Kentucky players and teams have been better, more consistently than any other program. The University of Kentucky has won more titles than any team except for UCLA, and won more games and NCAA tournament games than any other program. The Cats also have the greatest winning percentage of any team. They have been the best division one program of all time, and there isn’t that much of an argument.
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