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 285 is Northwestern State 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 Northwestern State basketball!
NCAA Tournament Success
- Championships: 0
- Finals appearances: 0
- Final Fours: 0
- Elite Eights: 0
- Sweet 16s: 0
- NCAA wins: 2
- Bids: 3
Consistency Over Time
- Wins per season: 12.8
- Bids per season: 0.06
- AP Polls: 0
Player Quality & Talent
- All-Americans: 0
- NBA players drafted & played: 1
- Conference Players of the Year: 2
Conference & Other Success
- Conference regular season titles: 3
- Conference tournament titles: 3
- NIT titles: 0
- Other tournament titles: 0
Overall scoop on Northwestern State basketball
Northwestern State’s all-time resume is all over the place.
On one hand, they’ve had three NCAA Tournament appearances and a pair of wins in the big dance. On the other hand, they’ve had just 15 winning seasons in 50 years, definitely a bit below some teams further back in these rankings.
Of course, the two wins in the NCAA Tournament really helped the Demons out in our formula. In 2006, as a 14-seed, they upset Iowa, 64-63, moving on to the round of 32. They’d lose to 6-seed West Virginia by 13 points, but their win over the Hawkeyes was one of the biggest upsets of all time at the time.
In 2001, in their first-ever trip to the NCAA Tournament, NW State won a play-in game against 16-seed Winthrop, but fell by 40+ to Illinois in the round of 64. That was a much less impressive showing.
All three of the Demons’ NCAA Tournaments came under head coach Mike McConathy, who spent 23 years at the helm, also guiding them to a trio of regular season conference championships. McConathy was far from perfect, and toward the end of his reign, the program started to steer downward.
Corey Gipson took over in 2022 and led the team to 22 wins, leaving right away for Austin Peay. Since then, it’s been Rick Cabrera, who heads into year four with just a 35-61 record so far.
Obviously, the McConathy era had its moments, and the upset over Iowa is some fun history, but other than that, it’s a program that has had a lot of bad years and hopes to revisit some better ones soon.