ESPN is doing a countdown of the best college basketball programs since the 1984-1985 season. You can read the story here. Maryland came in at 28th, based on the point system used below:
National title … 25
• Title game loss … 20
• National semifinal loss … 15
• Elite Eight loss … 10
• Best W-L record in conference's regular season … 5
• 30+ wins in a season … 5
• Sweet 16 loss … 5
• Conference tournament title … 3
• AP first team All-American … 3
• Losing in NCAA second round … 3
• Player in top 10 of NBA draft … 2
• NCAA first-round win as a 12-16 seed … 2
• NIT title … 2
• AP second team All-American … 2
• 20-29 wins in a season … 1
• NCAA tournament berth … 1
• Postseason NIT berth … 1
• AP third team All-American … 1
• NCAA first-round loss to a 12-16 seed … -2
• Losing season … -3
• Ban from NCAA tournament … -3
Positives:15 NCAA berths; 8 Sweet 16s; 2002 national championship; 6 first- and second-team All-Americans; 5 NBA top-10 picks
Negatives: 4 losing seasons; just 3 ACC titles (2 regular-season; 1 tourney); 2 NCAA sanctions
Total points: 143
I think this is a cool thing to do but I think ESPN's point system is flawed...
First, Why do you count 1st team All Americans and Top 10 Draft picks? Isn't that counting good players twice?
Second, and this is probably most important, there is no "strength of schedule/conference played in component." That allows teams like Penn and other crappy Ivy League schools to gain a lot of points because they win a crappy conference every year. If Maryland didn't have to compete against Duke, UNC, NC State, Wake and others on a yearly basis, I guarantee they'd be a lot higher on this list.
Maryland came in as the third best ACC team, which is quite an accomplishment, but I think most ACC school should be ranked higher than a lot of these teams.
I thought MD would crack the top 25, so I'm a little disappointed in the 28th ranking. Losing in the 2nd round and sweet 16 definitely hurt their ranking, as did missing the tournament 3 of the last 4 years (without winning the NIT to make up for it).
I think 28th is a fair assessment of the program today. If this was 2002, I'd say we'd be near the top 10. A lot has changed in the last few years...hopefully we'll claw our way back to that upper-upper tier status in the next few years.