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 261 is South Dakota 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 South Dakota 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: 16.2
- Bids per season: 0
- AP Polls: 0
Player Quality & Talent
- All-Americans: 0
- NBA players drafted & played: 0
- Conference Players of the Year: 1
Conference & Other Success
- Conference regular season titles: 2
- Conference tournament titles: 1
- NIT titles: 0
- Other tournament titles: 0
Overall scoop on South Dakota basketball
One of the last remaining programs without a tournament bid, South Dakota has averaged over 16 wins per season, the most we’ve seen so far in this series. The Coyotes are over .500 all time, which is impressive for a program that has played 17 seasons in D1.
South Dakota burst onto the scene, winning the Great West Conference regular season and tournament titles in their first year. Unfortunately, that didn’t turn into an automatic bid, as they fell to Creighton in the first round of the CIT.
South Dakota would soon join the Summit League, winning the regular season title there in 2016-17. The following season, they would go 11-3 in conference and win 26 games overall. Then head coach Craig Smith would leave for the open Utah State job.
Since Smith left, the South Dakota program has gone down slightly, but they’ve still had winning records in four of their last eight seasons.
It’s admittedly a little bit of a surprise to see South Dakota make it this high in the rankings, because some programs have hand a handful of tournament appearances. But when you’re literally a winning program for nearly two decades, that has to count for something, right?