SWC75
Bored Historian
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In the early 60’s Syracuse basketball was at a very low ebb. They set an NCAA record by losing 27 games in a row. The team was mostly used by SU football players to keep in shape during the winter. When Manley Field House was built as an indoor practice facility for the football team, the school decided to try to maximize its use by setting it up for other sports, too, including basketball. They realized they might be able to make some money off of it by having a basketball program that people might actually come out to see. They hired Fred Lewis who recruited Dave Bing and gathered other talent around him, including Jim Boeheim. In their senior year, Bing and Boeheim set a much better national record by averaging 99 points a game and won 22 games, losing to Duke in the Eastern Regional final. The program followed that up with a 20-6 record the following year and there was much optimism for the 1967-68 team with four starters coming back and the players from an undefeated freshmen team. That team suffered from internal dissension of some sort that I’ve never heard the details of and went 11-14. Fred Lewis wound up losing his job to be replaced by his assistant, Roy Danforth, who was more popular with the players. He should have gotten off to a great start with players from freshman teams that had gone a combined 31-1 but academic problems deprived him of two likely starters and a third who missed the first semester. On top of that some idiot had scheduled 10 of the first 11 games on the road. The result was a 9-16 record, our last losing team. In 1969-70 we got off to an exciting 6-0 start but faded to a 12-12 record mostly due to an allergy to defense.
The following year, we got off to a similar start, 5-0 but then lost four of our next five games, causing fans to assume that we were on our way to another mediocre or worse record. But it didn’t happen. Led by its 7 foot center, Bill Smith and a bunch of vertically challenged teammates, (Roy’s Runts plus 1), the team 13 of its final 15 games before losing in the first round of the NIT to Michigan, (the NCAA tournament had only 24 teams at that time and the NIT was full of good teams that didn’t quite make the cut). SU wound up 19-7, its first winning season in four years – and the first of 50 such seasons in a row. Generations of Syracuse fans have known nothing but winning seasons. No major college school in the country, (I haven’t bothered to check the small colleges), has had a winning record in every season since 1970-71 besides Syracuse University.
Here are the longest active streaks:
50 Syracuse 1971-2020
37 Kansas 1984-2020
36 Arizona 1985-2020
30 Kentucky 1991-2020
27 Maryland 1994-2020
We often express frustration at our inability to add to our total of national championships while other programs we consider ours to be comparable to add to theirs and the comparative lack of NBA stars for us to root for. This is the one thing we’ve got over them: They’ve all had losing and even seasons, in some cases several of them while we were having winning years. Beyond that ‘the streak’ unites generations of players, coaches and fans in a single accomplishment. Each year our goal is get to the NCAA tournament and hopefully make a good run there. But we can fail at that and continue the streak. If we lose the streak, we’ll likely never see anything like it in our lifetimes. (I won’t: I’ve seen the whole of this one and am now age 66.)
Here is a list of the all-time major college streaks, updated from when I first did it a few years ago - 2015- I’ve updated the teams that were on the list then but have not looked for schools that might have entered the list since then who were under 20 in a row then and would now be added to the list. There are also schools who started streaks as small colleges and moved up to major status later that would be 20+. They are not included.
54 UCLA 1949-2002
50 Syracuse 1971-2020+
46 Louisville 1945-1990
37 Kansas 1984-2020+
37 North Carolina 1965-2001
35 Arizona 1985-2020+
33 Indiana 1971-2003
31 St. John’s 1923-1953
30 Connecticut 1988-2017
30 Fordham 1903-1932
30 Notre Dame 1926-1955
30 St. John’s 1964-1993
30 Murray State 1988-2017
29 Kentucky 1991-2020+
28 Oklahoma 1982-2009
27 California 1908-1934
27 Rhode Island 1927-1953
26 Maryland 1994-2020+
26 North Dakota State 1901-1926
26 Toledo 1960-1985
25 Cincinnati 1954-1978
25 Kentucky 1928-1952
25 Montana 1974-1998
24 Dartmouth 1921-1944
24 DePaul 1972-1995
24 Georgetown 1975-1998
24 Utah State 1994-2017
23 Dayton 1949-1971
23 Oklahoma State 1989-2011
23 Princeton 1957-1979
23 Purdue 1920-1942
23 Temple 1984-2006
23 Western Michigan 1915-1937
22 Marquette 1966-1987
22 Penn State 1904-1925
21 Duke 1951-1972
21 UNLV 1974-1994
20 Duke 1996-2015
20 Houston 1960-1979
20 Illinois 1979-1998
20 Navy 1909-1928
20 North Carolina State 1972-1991
20 West Virginia 1945-1964
If we can string together five more winning seasons, (through 2024-25), we can be at the top of this list. Even if it ended then, it would take Kansas another 13 years beyond that to catch us. It would be quite a feather in our cap to have the longest streak of winning season in history. It would be frustrating to have the second longest streak and not get to #1.
Oh, that’s right. The NCAA party poopers issued sanctions against Syracuse University on March 6, 2015 that included an order that “the institution will vacate all wins from the academic years 2004-05, 2005-06, 2006-07, 2010-11 and 2011-12 in men's basketball”. This would end Syracuse’s steak with the 2003 season and reduce it to a 33 year streak. However the consecutive winning season streak is not an official NCAA record, (it doesn’t appear in the NCAA Basketball Record Book). If the record is itself unofficial, Syracuse could still reasonably claim that their now “unofficial” wins still count toward it. I’m certainly going to count them.
I decided to take a closer look at the streak. I collated the final AP polls from 1971-2019 on a 25 points for 1st, 24 points for 2nd, 23 for 3rd, etc. basis and came up with this list of the 25 most successful teams in the rankings during those years. The second and third numbers are wins and losses over the period. The fourth is the winning percentage. The fifth is a point system I decided to use for evaluating NCAA tournament success. You get one point for a win in the round of 64, two for a win in the round of 32, 3 for a Sweet Sixteen win, 4 for the elite 8, 5 for the national semi-finals and 6 for winning the national championship. These are additive: The national champion winds up with 21 points, the runner up with 15, etc. Then I listed the number of final fours, (ff) national championships (nc). The final stats are the number of NBA players and the total “net points”, (points + rebounds + assists + steals + blocks –missed field goals and free throws – turnovers – fouls committed) in those players careers. It’s the best measure of the talent produced by these programs I could think of.
(source: NBA & ABA Players Who Attended UNC | Basketball-Reference.com )
North Carolina 780 pts 1314-407 .764 281pts 15ff 5nc 79 players 328,051NP
Kentucky 694 pts 1282-390 .767 259pts 11ff 4nc 89 players 254,192NP
Duke 674 pts 1253-407 .755 270pts 13ff 5nc 75 players 219,349NP
Kansas 664 pts 1279-396 .764 207pts 11ff 2nc 63 players 144,709NP
UCLA 505 pts 1132-428 .726 206pts 11ff 5nc 86 players 291,159NP
Syracuse 434 pts 1206-447 .730 135pts 6ff 1nc 47 players 101,458NP
Louisville 427 pts 1177-482 .709 155pts 9ff 3nc 50 players 79,395NP
Arizona 417 pts 1099-487 .693 111pts 4ff 1nc 56 players 166,114NP
Michigan State 395 pts 1044-538 .660 156pts 8ff 2nc 38 players 140,128NP
Indiana 337 pts 1054-531 .665 132pts 6ff 3nc 49 players 161,198NP
Michigan 311 pts 1021-565 .644 122pts 6ff 1nc 47 players 146,311NP
Georgetown 304 pts 1041-547 .656 101pts 4ff 1nc 36 players 141,439NP
Maryland 290 pts 1036-554 .652 74pts 2ff 1nc 41 players 113,140NP
Purdue 277 pts 1034-541 .657 57pts 1ff 0nc 29 players 53,833NP
Connecticut 272 pts 1036-546 .655 143pts 4ff 4nc 34 players 143,644NP
Notre Dame 260 pts 978-578 .629 49pts 1ff 0nc 41 players 120,253NP
Oklahoma 258 pts 1045-536 .661 74pts 3ff 0nc 21 players 83,892NP
Virginia 255 pts 990-572 .634 76pts 3ff 1nc 32 players 46,808NP
Nevada-Las Vegas 252 pts 1089-474 .697 67pts 4ff 1nc 40 players 109,044NP
Marquette 250 pts 1017-502 .670 71pts 3ff 1nc 35 players 98,415NP
Villanova 248 pts 1059-562 .653 134pts 5ff 3nc 35 players 81,524NP
Ohio State 241 pts 974-585 .625 69pts 3ff 0nc 31 players 97,410NP
Arkansas 239 pts 1028-553 .650 85pts 4ff 1nc 32 players 93,054NP
Missouri 211 pts 987-590 .626 36pts 0ff 0nc 29 players 50,008NP
Illinois 209 pts 975-597 .620 57pts 2ff 0nc 25 players 82,290NP
We are the 6th best team as far as ‘poll points’, the 5th best in victories, winning percentage, 6th in NCAA tournament points, 10th in final fours, national championships and NBA players. But our NBA players have been only 14th in productivity: we’ve gotten a lot out of the talent we had, something that is obviously the key to a 50 year streak. (I was amazed at how relatively unproductive Louisville players have been in the NBA: three of their last four coaches, Peck Hickman, Denny Crum and Rick Pitino have been Hall of Famers – the other John Dromo had to quit after four years and a 68-23 record due to a heart attack. The current Coach, Chris Mack could be a Hall of Famer someday.)
The five teams ahead of us in the above list have had these seasons:
North Carolina 2001-02: 8-20, 2019-20: 14-19
Kentucky 1973-74: 13-13, 1988-89: 13-19; 1989-90: 14-14
Duke 1972-73: 12-14, 1973-74 10-16, 1974-75 13-13, 1975-76 13-14, 1981-82 10-17, 1982-83 11-17, 1994-95 13-18
Kansas 1971-72: 11-15, 1972-73: 8-18, 1975-76: 13-13, 1981-82: 13-14, 1982-83: 13-16
UCLA: 2002-03: 10-19, 2003-04: 11-17, 2009-10: 14-18
We haven’t had a season like those in over 50 years. it’s the one thing we’ve got on them.
The following year, we got off to a similar start, 5-0 but then lost four of our next five games, causing fans to assume that we were on our way to another mediocre or worse record. But it didn’t happen. Led by its 7 foot center, Bill Smith and a bunch of vertically challenged teammates, (Roy’s Runts plus 1), the team 13 of its final 15 games before losing in the first round of the NIT to Michigan, (the NCAA tournament had only 24 teams at that time and the NIT was full of good teams that didn’t quite make the cut). SU wound up 19-7, its first winning season in four years – and the first of 50 such seasons in a row. Generations of Syracuse fans have known nothing but winning seasons. No major college school in the country, (I haven’t bothered to check the small colleges), has had a winning record in every season since 1970-71 besides Syracuse University.
Here are the longest active streaks:
50 Syracuse 1971-2020
37 Kansas 1984-2020
36 Arizona 1985-2020
30 Kentucky 1991-2020
27 Maryland 1994-2020
We often express frustration at our inability to add to our total of national championships while other programs we consider ours to be comparable to add to theirs and the comparative lack of NBA stars for us to root for. This is the one thing we’ve got over them: They’ve all had losing and even seasons, in some cases several of them while we were having winning years. Beyond that ‘the streak’ unites generations of players, coaches and fans in a single accomplishment. Each year our goal is get to the NCAA tournament and hopefully make a good run there. But we can fail at that and continue the streak. If we lose the streak, we’ll likely never see anything like it in our lifetimes. (I won’t: I’ve seen the whole of this one and am now age 66.)
Here is a list of the all-time major college streaks, updated from when I first did it a few years ago - 2015- I’ve updated the teams that were on the list then but have not looked for schools that might have entered the list since then who were under 20 in a row then and would now be added to the list. There are also schools who started streaks as small colleges and moved up to major status later that would be 20+. They are not included.
54 UCLA 1949-2002
50 Syracuse 1971-2020+
46 Louisville 1945-1990
37 Kansas 1984-2020+
37 North Carolina 1965-2001
35 Arizona 1985-2020+
33 Indiana 1971-2003
31 St. John’s 1923-1953
30 Connecticut 1988-2017
30 Fordham 1903-1932
30 Notre Dame 1926-1955
30 St. John’s 1964-1993
30 Murray State 1988-2017
29 Kentucky 1991-2020+
28 Oklahoma 1982-2009
27 California 1908-1934
27 Rhode Island 1927-1953
26 Maryland 1994-2020+
26 North Dakota State 1901-1926
26 Toledo 1960-1985
25 Cincinnati 1954-1978
25 Kentucky 1928-1952
25 Montana 1974-1998
24 Dartmouth 1921-1944
24 DePaul 1972-1995
24 Georgetown 1975-1998
24 Utah State 1994-2017
23 Dayton 1949-1971
23 Oklahoma State 1989-2011
23 Princeton 1957-1979
23 Purdue 1920-1942
23 Temple 1984-2006
23 Western Michigan 1915-1937
22 Marquette 1966-1987
22 Penn State 1904-1925
21 Duke 1951-1972
21 UNLV 1974-1994
20 Duke 1996-2015
20 Houston 1960-1979
20 Illinois 1979-1998
20 Navy 1909-1928
20 North Carolina State 1972-1991
20 West Virginia 1945-1964
If we can string together five more winning seasons, (through 2024-25), we can be at the top of this list. Even if it ended then, it would take Kansas another 13 years beyond that to catch us. It would be quite a feather in our cap to have the longest streak of winning season in history. It would be frustrating to have the second longest streak and not get to #1.
Oh, that’s right. The NCAA party poopers issued sanctions against Syracuse University on March 6, 2015 that included an order that “the institution will vacate all wins from the academic years 2004-05, 2005-06, 2006-07, 2010-11 and 2011-12 in men's basketball”. This would end Syracuse’s steak with the 2003 season and reduce it to a 33 year streak. However the consecutive winning season streak is not an official NCAA record, (it doesn’t appear in the NCAA Basketball Record Book). If the record is itself unofficial, Syracuse could still reasonably claim that their now “unofficial” wins still count toward it. I’m certainly going to count them.
I decided to take a closer look at the streak. I collated the final AP polls from 1971-2019 on a 25 points for 1st, 24 points for 2nd, 23 for 3rd, etc. basis and came up with this list of the 25 most successful teams in the rankings during those years. The second and third numbers are wins and losses over the period. The fourth is the winning percentage. The fifth is a point system I decided to use for evaluating NCAA tournament success. You get one point for a win in the round of 64, two for a win in the round of 32, 3 for a Sweet Sixteen win, 4 for the elite 8, 5 for the national semi-finals and 6 for winning the national championship. These are additive: The national champion winds up with 21 points, the runner up with 15, etc. Then I listed the number of final fours, (ff) national championships (nc). The final stats are the number of NBA players and the total “net points”, (points + rebounds + assists + steals + blocks –missed field goals and free throws – turnovers – fouls committed) in those players careers. It’s the best measure of the talent produced by these programs I could think of.
(source: NBA & ABA Players Who Attended UNC | Basketball-Reference.com )
North Carolina 780 pts 1314-407 .764 281pts 15ff 5nc 79 players 328,051NP
Kentucky 694 pts 1282-390 .767 259pts 11ff 4nc 89 players 254,192NP
Duke 674 pts 1253-407 .755 270pts 13ff 5nc 75 players 219,349NP
Kansas 664 pts 1279-396 .764 207pts 11ff 2nc 63 players 144,709NP
UCLA 505 pts 1132-428 .726 206pts 11ff 5nc 86 players 291,159NP
Syracuse 434 pts 1206-447 .730 135pts 6ff 1nc 47 players 101,458NP
Louisville 427 pts 1177-482 .709 155pts 9ff 3nc 50 players 79,395NP
Arizona 417 pts 1099-487 .693 111pts 4ff 1nc 56 players 166,114NP
Michigan State 395 pts 1044-538 .660 156pts 8ff 2nc 38 players 140,128NP
Indiana 337 pts 1054-531 .665 132pts 6ff 3nc 49 players 161,198NP
Michigan 311 pts 1021-565 .644 122pts 6ff 1nc 47 players 146,311NP
Georgetown 304 pts 1041-547 .656 101pts 4ff 1nc 36 players 141,439NP
Maryland 290 pts 1036-554 .652 74pts 2ff 1nc 41 players 113,140NP
Purdue 277 pts 1034-541 .657 57pts 1ff 0nc 29 players 53,833NP
Connecticut 272 pts 1036-546 .655 143pts 4ff 4nc 34 players 143,644NP
Notre Dame 260 pts 978-578 .629 49pts 1ff 0nc 41 players 120,253NP
Oklahoma 258 pts 1045-536 .661 74pts 3ff 0nc 21 players 83,892NP
Virginia 255 pts 990-572 .634 76pts 3ff 1nc 32 players 46,808NP
Nevada-Las Vegas 252 pts 1089-474 .697 67pts 4ff 1nc 40 players 109,044NP
Marquette 250 pts 1017-502 .670 71pts 3ff 1nc 35 players 98,415NP
Villanova 248 pts 1059-562 .653 134pts 5ff 3nc 35 players 81,524NP
Ohio State 241 pts 974-585 .625 69pts 3ff 0nc 31 players 97,410NP
Arkansas 239 pts 1028-553 .650 85pts 4ff 1nc 32 players 93,054NP
Missouri 211 pts 987-590 .626 36pts 0ff 0nc 29 players 50,008NP
Illinois 209 pts 975-597 .620 57pts 2ff 0nc 25 players 82,290NP
We are the 6th best team as far as ‘poll points’, the 5th best in victories, winning percentage, 6th in NCAA tournament points, 10th in final fours, national championships and NBA players. But our NBA players have been only 14th in productivity: we’ve gotten a lot out of the talent we had, something that is obviously the key to a 50 year streak. (I was amazed at how relatively unproductive Louisville players have been in the NBA: three of their last four coaches, Peck Hickman, Denny Crum and Rick Pitino have been Hall of Famers – the other John Dromo had to quit after four years and a 68-23 record due to a heart attack. The current Coach, Chris Mack could be a Hall of Famer someday.)
The five teams ahead of us in the above list have had these seasons:
North Carolina 2001-02: 8-20, 2019-20: 14-19
Kentucky 1973-74: 13-13, 1988-89: 13-19; 1989-90: 14-14
Duke 1972-73: 12-14, 1973-74 10-16, 1974-75 13-13, 1975-76 13-14, 1981-82 10-17, 1982-83 11-17, 1994-95 13-18
Kansas 1971-72: 11-15, 1972-73: 8-18, 1975-76: 13-13, 1981-82: 13-14, 1982-83: 13-16
UCLA: 2002-03: 10-19, 2003-04: 11-17, 2009-10: 14-18
We haven’t had a season like those in over 50 years. it’s the one thing we’ve got on them.
