The Top 10 Teams since 2002... | Syracusefan.com

The Top 10 Teams since 2002...

jordville

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The Field of 68 put out the top 10 teams in the past 20 years (since 2002). This is who they have...
They said...
This list is straight from @kenpomeroy’s 10 teams with the highest AdjEM since 2002

15 Kentucky +36.91
21 Zaga +36.48
08 Kansas +35.21
19 Virginia +34.22
02 Duke +34.19
21 Baylor +33.87
18 Nova +33.76
15 Wisc +33.72
11 OSU +33.47
10 Duke +33.29

The glaring miss is 2003.

2009 UNC was pretty darn good.. and not to be included.

I get that there are times the "best" team doesn't win the championship, but I don't like that they included teams that didn't even win it for their top 10.
 
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Baylor and Villanova were 2 of the best teams I saw in that list. They dominated both of there tournaments.
 
For example. Baylors 21 team had 8 close wins/losses to kentuckys 9. Baylor also won the championship which Kentucky did not do. Also they had only 2 loses all year, and smoked an undefeated Gonzaga team that is ranked number 2 on this list. Can the top 2 teams really be the top 2 teams in the last 20 years if they didn’t win a championship? I say no.
 
2018 villanova should be higher. They won every game in the NCAAT by 12+ points.
 
Obviously I'm partial to the 2003, 2010 and 2012 Cuse teams, but taking SU out of the equation, here are some great teams that I think could beat many teams on the above list...

2002 Duke
2002 Maryland
2004 UConn
2005 UNC
2006 UConn
2007 Florida
2009 UNC
2012 Kentucky
 
2010 Duke is an absurd inclusion. They weren't even one of the three best teams in the country that year.


That 2010 Duke team was so incredibly pedestrian. The stars just happened to align for them with the Onuaku injury and Kentucky/Kansas both getting upset before the Final 4. Outside of the UConn team from 2014 I would argue 2010 Duke is the worst champion of the last quarter century.
 
I don't know that this shows recency bias so much as it does the limits with using math to judge sports. The human element ensures that math formulas alone cannot explain who the best teams are. The eye test is legit. I loved that PTI mocked ESPN's BPI with regards to the NBA finals this year. It gave the Celtics an 86% chance to win and we saw how that went. And that was during a best of 7 series where the best team ultimately has a better chance to win than in a single elimination and should align more closely with metrics.
 
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