The college basketball offseason is here, and we decided to have some fun over the next few months, ranking ALL 364 teams in D1. Number 322 is William & Mary basketball.
Before you say we’re crazy – or that all of this is up for debate, let’s go over the very intricate process of how we came to this conclusion. We took a very statistical approach – with the help of Chat GPT – taking into consideration everything from March Madness wins and finishes, to AP Poll appearances, to conference players of the year. And then, a good friend of ours, Scott Blanchard, took our approach to the MAX.
Click here to visit the FIRST article, which explains how the formula works!
Here’s the breakdown of William & Mary basketball!
NCAA Tournament Success
- Championships: 0
- Finals appearances: 0
- Final Fours: 0
- Elite Eights: 0
- Sweet 16s: 0
- NCAA wins: 0
- Bids: 0
Consistency Over Time
- Wins per season: 11.0
- Bids per season: 0
- AP Polls: 0
Player Quality & Talent
- All-Americans: 0
- NBA players drafted & played: 2
- Conference Players of the Year: 4
Conference & Other Success
- Conference regular season titles: 3
- Conference tournament titles: 0
- NIT titles: 0
- Other tournament titles: 0
Overall scoop on William & Mary basketball
William & Mary basketball has pretty much been DI since the beginning of time, with 121 years at the highest level. But in that span, they’ve never once made the big dance, trailing only Army for the most seasons played without a trip to the tourney.
The Tribe had some great years early on before college basketball got big, and even some of their early years in the SoCon would’ve been tournament worthy by today’s standards. They won at least 20 games in three straight seasons from 1948-51. And back then, the SoCon had some of today’s biggest programs, such as Duke, North Carolina, NC State, West Virginia, Maryland, and more.
However, the success under head coach Bernard “Barney” Wilson was short-lived, because of his involvement in a major sports scandal back in the day. If you want to read more about it, click here.
As you’d expect, a decline in winning resulted right after, and a few decades later, the program would become independent and then join what is now the Coastal Athletics Association.
While life there wasn’t great to begin with, head coach Tony Shaver finally changed the trajectory and became the all-time winningest head coach in program history, with 226 to his name.
Over the years, four players were named conference POY – Jeff Cohen (SoCon, 1961), Tom Jasper (SoCon, 1971), Marcus Thornton (CAA, 2015), and Nathan Knight (CAA, 2020).
And lately, the Tribe has found more success under head coach Brian Earl. The team is 37-27 under his watch in just two short seasons.
Obviously, tournament success hasn’t been something this program has seen, but they’re as historic as it gets when it comes to being in the picture and having a solid era multiple decades ago. And who knows what would have happened if the scandal had never happened.