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 320 is Denver 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 Denver 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: 10.0
- Bids per season: 0
- AP Polls: 0
Player Quality & Talent
- All-Americans: 1
- NBA players drafted & played: 3
- Conference Players of the Year: 2
Conference & Other Success
- Conference regular season titles: 4
- Conference tournament titles: 0
- NIT titles: 0
- Other tournament titles: 0
Overall scoop on Denver basketball
For a team with zero NCAA Tournament bids, there is a surprising amount of history for the Denver Pioneers. The program saw some early history that led to a consensus All-American in 1949 in Vince Boryla. The 6-foot-5 Boryla was listed as a center and started his career at Notre Dame before transferring (yes, it’s always been a thing) to the Pioneers. He’d go on to have a five-year NBA career, being named an All-Star with the New York Knicks in 1951. He also won an Olympic gold medal with Team U.S.A in the 1948 Summer Olympics.
About a decade later, another Denver player, Byron Beck, would get drafted in the NBA and embark on a long ABA career that lasted nine seasons. Beck was a two-time All-Star in that league. He played one NBA season once the leagues merged.
Even though Denver produced some great players, it didn’t show on the court as they only had a handful of winning seasons throughout that time period.
The Pioneers would then leave the DI landscape in 1980, despite two winning seasons in a row, due to financial reasons. They spent time between the NAIA and DII levels, becoming a pretty dominant team. Denver would make the move back to Division I in the 1998-99 season.
The Pioneers had some great years under head coach Terry Carroll, winning the Sun Belt regular season crown in 2005. That team was led by big man Yemi Nicholson, who won the league’s Player of the Year.
But after an awful 4-25 campaign in 2006-07, they moved in a different direction. Joe Scott quickly rebuilt Denver, and over the course of nine years, saw a program play in the Sun Belt, WAC, and Summit, but still put together five winning seasons. Their only year in the WAC, 2012-13, Denver went 16-2 and won the regular season title.
However, when Rodney Billups (brother of Chauncey) took over in 2016, things started to go downhill. He went 31-29 at the helm in his first two seasons, but then went 17-65 over the next three. Jeff Wulbrun didn’t even last four seasons, and after one year, Tim Bergstraser hopes to get things moving in a positive direction after a 15-17 season.
Denver basketball is still searching for that NCAA Tournament appearance, but they’ve been able to have some bragging rights on all-time players and years in the early 2000s.