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 288 is Southern Utah 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 Southern Utah basketball!
NCAA Tournament Success
- Championships: 0
- Finals appearances: 0
- Final Fours: 0
- Elite Eights: 0
- Sweet 16s: 0
- NCAA wins: 0
- Bids: 1
Consistency Over Time
- Wins per season: 13.1
- Bids per season: 0.03
- AP Polls: 0
Player Quality & Talent
- All-Americans: 0
- NBA players drafted & played: 0
- 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 Southern Utah basketball
Next up is a Southern Utah basketball program that’s been around for almost 40 seasons, with one NCAA Tournament appearance to its credit.
The Thunderbirds won the 1995 and 1996 AWC Tournaments, but didn’t receive an auto bid due to the conference only having four teams. In 2001, their Mid-Cont tourney win got them an invite to March Madness.
All of those teams were coached by Bill Evans, who won 208 games in 16 seasons as the head coach of the program. Southern Utah struggled for a short period of time before Todd Simon came in and built them back up, with three straight 20-win seasons between 2020 and 2023. However, he would move on to a job at Bowling Green.
Overall, consistency in being almost always reasonably good is a credit to give the Thunderbirds. In 38 seasons, they’ve only had fewer than 10 wins on six different occasions. They’ve had 13 winning seasons, with one coming just about every three years.
It’s a program that kind of falls under the radar, but has rarely been very bad, always being somewhat respectable, which has to earn some extra credit at this point in the rankings.